The Twitter account of crypto enthusiast and influencer BitBoy Crypto – otherwise known as Ben Armstrong – has been hacked.
A popular influencer in the crypto community with a following exceeding one million on Twitter, Armstrong experienced a security breach on June 11. With control of the account, the attacker lured a $1-million worth of investments in a fake crypto token.
This hack is just one of many involving control of an influential person’s social media account, which has struck several well-known figures.
The BitBoy Crypto Hack
BitBoy was hacked with a SIM-swap, which is when a hacker gains access to a victim’s online account by stealing their phone number. It’s one of many social engineering hacks that can be used to steal information – including crypto.
In most cases, attackers ensnare victims through claimed celebrity affiliations, then use language that’s specific to a social or political cause. In this situation, the attacker was targeting critics of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the recent crackdown on crypto.
Source: Twitter
On June 6, the SEC sued the largest crypto exchange, Coinbase, for depriving investors of protection by offering them unregistered securities. They also sued the largest global exchange, Binance, and its CEO Changpeng Zhao for commingling customer and corporate funds.
During this incident, the hacker used the access to Armstrong’s Twitter account to share banners depicting SEC Chairperson Gary Gansler as BitBoy. The banners used explicit language, and one of them even encouraged users to obtain “anti-SEC” scam tokens as a challenge to Gansler’s influence in the industry.
BitBoy Crypto took to YouTube to warn his followers about the hack and assure them that he was in the process of reclaiming the account. He warned everyone not to click on any links.
Armstrong also claimed that the same hacker attacked pro-crypto lawyer John Deaton’s Twitter account, who is a known advocate against the SEC’s application of the US securities laws.
Major Crypto Hacks
BitBoy Crypto is just the latest influencer whose account has been hacked to defraud followers. Another well-known crypto whale, FranklinIsBored, was recently a victim of a hacking incident.
In another high-profile attack, the Twitter account of OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer appears to have been hacked to promote fraudulent cryptocurrency. The account started promoting a new cryptocurrency, $OPENAI, that was allegedly drive by “artificial-intelligence-based models.”[1]
2022 was also filled with major hacks of crypto projects. In fact, the blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, said 2022 was the “biggest year ever” in terms of the crypto projects that were hit and drained of funds.
Source: Twitter
Some of these hacks include:
Binance
Hackers hit the world’s biggest crypto exchange on October 6, 2022, getting away with $566 million in BNB. The exploit targeted the cross-chain bridge BSC Token Hub, allowing the hackers to essentially conjure tokens out of nothing. Fortunately, no users were affected.
Ronin
Ronin, a sidechain for the game Axie Infinity, was hit in March of 2022, pulling about $522 million in Ethereum and USDC. When the developers disclosed the hack a week later, the total loss was up to $622 million. They used hacked private keys to forge transactions and claim funds.
FTX
FTX was one of the biggest hacks of the year – and possibly the biggest news story – of 2022. The highly popular digital asset exchange ultimately collapsed, losing billions of dollars in funds. It filed bankruptcy in November, but was later hit by a mystery attack.
Several wallets allegedly belonging to FTX were drained of around $446 million in tokens. The funds were laundered through different exchanges and into different cryptocurrencies.
Wormhole
Decentralized finance protocols were hit hard in 2022. Though a promising technology, DeFi is still new and experimental – leading to security issues. The bridges are a weak point, allowing users to transfer funds between chains.
In February, the Wormhole bridge was exploited by hackers who targeted the leg on Solana, where they must lock Ethereum into a smart contract, to mint tokens totaling about $326 million.
Nomad
Nomad was another bridge hit in August. The platform allows users to move digital assets across blockchains. Hackers took advantage of a bug in the upgrade and pulled all the funds in all the currencies.
The company offered 10% to hackers who returned the tokens (without involving law enforcement) and the funds began to come back in. It recovered about $22 million but prompted the FBI to warn investors about the rising crypto hacks.
Just the high-profile attacks cover about $2.07 billion, and they’re only a small portion of the attacks that occurred.
Hackers Targeting Crypto
The crypto industry is already facing scrutiny and surrounded by controversy, so these hacks are only drawing more attention to the issues. Though in all of these attacks, the hacking victims got the word out quickly, the attackers were able to promote scam coins and steal a lot of funds before the news spread. It’s important for everyone to exercise caution – including the influencers who are becoming a target.
Sources:
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-ctos-twitter-account-hacked-024415312.html
