A media platform dedicated to cryptocurrency news and updates has reported that its X account was compromised by a hacker who disseminated unauthorized content across various channels.
In a recent X update, the crypto news platform alerted its nearly 3 million followers on social media about the hack. The team is actively investigating the incident and is in touch with X’s support team.
“Our X account has been hacked, and the previous post (now erased) was made by a hacker. We have two-factor authentication enabled and have taken significant steps to prevent hacks,” the account stated in a recent message.
Shortly after 2:05 AM UTC on March 21, the hacker posted an unauthorized message on the account falsely claiming that payment firm SWIFT was nearing an agreement with Ripple to utilize XRP for international payments. However, the account quickly clarified that this post did not originate from their team but was published by an intruder who gained control of the account.
The platform explained that due to their automated system that reposts content from their X account to other social media platforms, the misleading post was also circulated on their Telegram, Facebook, and Discord channels.
“All unauthorized posts have been deleted, and our account is now secure. We are reaching out to X for further details,” the platform confirmed.
How did the intruder gain access to the account?
The team suspects that the breach may be linked to a suspicious X link received in their Telegram on March 5. They believe this might have been a social engineering tactic used to hijack the official account. The link appeared unusual due to a “token” query string that typically doesn’t occur in X links.
“We didn’t think much of it at first since it seemed to be an official link, but we messaged X’s head of Cyber Security, @cstanley, for confirmation. Unfortunately, we did not receive any reply,” the team noted.
Although they cannot definitively connect the hack to the strange link, another cryptocurrency-focused news outlet, DB News, experienced a similar incident. Even with two-factor authentication in place, both accounts fell victim to the breach.
At the time of writing, the platform had yet to identify the precise method or source of the hack. Nonetheless, they assured their followers they would implement measures to prevent further breaches and will provide updates as more information becomes available.
In recent years, numerous X accounts have suffered from hacking incidents. Many of these accounts were exploited to promote memecoins, which were launched shortly after the unauthorized posts. For instance, in February, the Instagram account of luxury brand Dior was hacked to promote a fraudulent Solana (SOL)-based Dior memecoin, which quickly achieved a $280,000 market cap before plummeting by 90% after the post was deleted.