The account of corporate finance accounting service PwC was hacked to advertise altcoins. The attack is focused on another verified Twitter account that has been hacked for blatantly promoting altcoins.
Twitter accounts targeted by hacks to advertise altcoins
The official Twitter account of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Venezuela has been hacked for promoting an XRP scam. After hacking PwC’s Twitter account, the attackers shared the following ad featuring the image of the Ripple CEO. As you follow on Kriptokoin.com, this hack is not the only recent exploit. The South Korean government’s YouTube channel was also hacked this weekend.
What happened?
They advertised a “big event” with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expected to take place an hour later. His tweet contains a link that should encourage potential victims to post their crypto. Prior to this, other verified accounts with significant followings were compromised to encourage the same scam.
XRP lottery scams have been popping up on social media for years. In April 2020, Ripple went so far as to sue YouTube for failing to prevent and remove these scams. The company claimed that YouTube’s failure to block fraudulent XRP videos damaged its reputation.
Last September, YouTube reached a settlement agreement with Ripple.
The two sides have promised to work together to put an end to cryptocurrency fraud. Last May, XRP scammers managed to hack the official account of Spain’s oldest law enforcement agency. Social media is still brimming with cryptocurrency scams after all these years.
Scammers often target blue-tick accounts to give credence to their fraudulent offers. On Saturday, the official YouTube channel of the South Korean government was hacked. In line with their plans, the attackers changed the name of their channel to “SpaceX Invest” at the first opportunity. They started crypto money fraud with a live broadcast featuring Tesla CEO Elon Musk. In March, a number of verified Twitter accounts began promoting a fake Ape Coin airdrop. As a result, they defrauded more than $1 million innocent users.
Similar hacking events
In April last year, the official YouTube account of Spain’s oldest law enforcement agency, the Civil Guard, was hacked. Hackers hijacked the channel to advertise a fake XRP. They changed the name of the account to “Ripple – XRP Foundation” while all its content was deleted.
Hackers often hijack large social media accounts to promote fake cryptocurrency giveaways. Ripple took YouTube to court in April 2020 for allowing bad actors to impersonate CEO Brad Garlinghouse and his company. The manager claimed to have received death threats from the victims. The lawsuit ended this March. But Garlinghouse was still adamant that social media needed to clean up fraudulent content.
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