XRP Giveaway Scam Launched on Crypto Exchange CoinDCX’s Twitter Account

The Twitter account of Indian crypto trade CoinDCX remained compromised for hours on Tuesday.

Hackers posted a pretend XRP giveaway scheme by means of the exploited Twitter deal with @CoinDCX to the trade’s over 230,000 followers. The giveaway message was interspersed with a phishing hyperlink.

CoinDCX Twitter Account Exploited

As CoinDCX tried to take management of its compromised Twitter account, it put out an alert by means of one other Twitter deal with, @CoinDCX _Cares.

It was additionally retweeted by CoinDCX officers, together with CEO Sumit Gupta. The message cautioned the followers of the exploited standing of its Twitter account and warned them to not click on on any hyperlink or discover that they could obtain from the Twitter deal with @CoinDCX as we speak. 

To make it look pure, the exploiters had been retweeting official posts of Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse and replied to tweets with scam/phishing hyperlinks. Users who click on on the hyperlinks in these posts might lose their funds to the scam.

As the issue persevered for greater than 5 hours after being acknowledged by CoinDCX, the loss to the customers could also be substantial. 

Detected by PeckShield

The drawback was first detected and reported by blockchain safety company PeckShield on intel supplied by a Twitter person @aayushrai11. In a tweet alert, PeckShield mentioned, “Seems like Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX’s Twitter account @CoinDCX was compromised & has been used by the exploiter to share links to fraudulent $XRP GIVEAWAY.” 

It additionally contained a screenshot of the compromised account with the hackers’ message: Today, we’re pumping XRP. To assist our group, we’re saying a 100,000,000 XRP GIVEAWAY. Please notice: you possibly can obtain a bonus as soon as. Please hurry!

Spurt in Cyber Attacks

In December final year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was briefly compromised, and the hackers posted the same bitcoin giveaway scam. 

The hackers posted a message that mentioned, “India has officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender. The government has officially bought 500 BTC and is distributing them to all the residents of the country.” The message was adopted by a phishing hyperlink.  

Modi’s Twitter account was hacked in September 2020 as effectively, and the exploiters at the moment requested for donations in bitcoin and different digital cash. 

Another hacking occasion involving the social media accounts of the British Army occurred in July 2022. The exploiters promoted BTC and NFT scams by means of the compromised account Twitter and YouTube accounts which had been partially restored solely after two hours.