Vitalik Buterin’s X Account Gets Hacked, Victims Suffer $691,000 in Losses From False NFT Promotion

Hackers were able to compromise the account of Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin on social media platform X and used it to promote a non-fungible token (NFT) scam. 

Vitalik’s father, Dmitry Buterin, warned that the account was compromised after it posted a false announcement that blockchain software company Consensys was giving away a free “commemorative NFT” supposedly to celebrate the coming of Proto-Danksharding to Ethereum.

The malicious post, which has since been deleted, included a link to a phishing site that asked victims to connect their wallets, enabling the cybercriminals to drain their funds. 

The NFT collector with the X handle Bokkypoobah says he lost CryptoPunk #3983 valued at 153.62 ETH, or around $249,000, and CryptoPunk #1751 worth 58.18 ETH, or around $94,251, because of the fake Consensys NFT promotion.

“WARNING! I JUST LOST A FEW PUNKS! DON’T INTERACT!”

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT says the breach cost victims over $691,000 worth of crypto assets in losses.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says he also had his account locked a few times in the past because of brute force attacks from hackers.

“Vitalik’s Twitter account got hacked. Use common sense when reading content on social media, even from large KOLs (key opinion leaders). Twitter’s account security is not designed as a financial platform. It needs quite a bit more features: two-factor authentication, login ID should be different from handle or email, etc.”

According to CryptoPunk data, both Punks were subsequently sold by the bad actor. 

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Featured Image: Shutterstock/Jorm S