Over the weekend, a hacker took control of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s X (formerly Twitter) account and quickly stole hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of high-profile NFTs.
In a now-deleted post, Buterin’s account promoted what appeared to be a free NFT link celebrating “Proto-Danksharding” in partnership with Consensys, the company behind the MetaMask crypto wallet. Instead, when users click on the link and connect their wallets, the hackers drain their assets. According to crypto sleuth @ZachXBT, the vulnerability netted the attacker approximately $690,000 in total.
Although Buterin’s father quickly posted on X that his son’s account had been hacked, the exploiter still managed to steal several expensive NFTs. Includes Cryptopunk #3983As of Monday, the latest price was 153.62 ether, or about $244,000.
The attack was quickly highlighted as yet another example of the risk cryptocurrency enthusiasts face from being hacked. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also took the opportunity to criticize X for his alleged lax security standards. He noted that his X account had been locked out multiple times when hackers tried to crack his password.
“Twitter’s account security is not designed as a financial platform. It needs more features: 2FA, login ID should be different from username or email, etc.,” Zhao wrote on Sunday.
Vitalik’s Twitter account was hacked. Use common sense when reading content on social media, even from large KOLs.
Twitter’s account security is not designed as a financial platform. It needs more features: 2FA, login ID should be different from username or email, etc… pic.twitter.com/oYQch8r2H0
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) September 10, 2023
The attack on Buterin X’s account is the latest in a long line of social media hacks aimed at capturing cryptocurrencies and NFTs. These types of hacks often target celebrities and public figures to gain as much influence as possible, resulting in more unsuspecting social media users being compromised.
In June, a hacker took over the accounts of Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian, Joe Biden, Kanye West and Warren Buffett, among others X account to commit cryptocurrency fraud Sentenced to five years in prison and three years of supervised release.According to blockchain data platform Chainaanalysis, cryptocurrency scammers have stolen $1 billion by 2023 as of Junewhich follows the theft of approximately $5.9 billion in 2022.
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