Twitter Accounts of CoinDesk, Bitfinex and Binance Hacked

An anonymous user recently hacked into the Twitter accounts of cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao. The hack has rattled the crypto community and also alerted them to the ease with which a phishing scheme can be run.

Social media accounts hacked

The Twitter accounts of at least six cryptocurrency exchanges as well as media outlets were hacked by a group on Wednesday afternoon. This included the likes of Binance, KuCoin, Bitfinex, and CoinDesk. The accounts of Elon Musk and Bill Gates were also hijacked by the same group of hackers. Leaving Binance, all the other high-profile accounts were restored and the fraudulent tweets were immediately deleted.

The hacker was most likely using a Binance account to scam users in a crypto giveaway. The account of Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO, tweeted, “We have partnered with CryptoForHealth and are giving back 5000 BTC.” The CEO had warned users of the hack a few minutes after the Binance account was hacked. However, the hackers then took control of his account and his warnings were hidden and blocked.

Binance in trouble

The Binance Jersey Twitter account was hacked some months ago by a white hat hacker. Recently, another hacker leaked the KYC documents of users. But Binance is not the only high-profile crypto exchange account that was hacked. The accounts of other prominent exchanges like Coinbase, Gemini, Bitfinex, and KuCoin were also compromised. Bitcoin.com and Tron CEO Justin Sun’s accounts also published a similar message of giving back 5000 BTC to the crypto community.

The crypto community seemed wary of the scams. However, some people heeded the messages on Elon Musk and Bill Gates’ profiles. Network activity shows that people have already sent several transactions on the address provided in the tweet. Some users suspect that a Twitter API posting service was most likely compromised because of which the fake giveaway tweets were being sent from the accounts.