Hackers Loot Nearly $700k After Hacking Vitalik's Twitter Account

Hackers Loot Nearly $700k After Hacking Vitalik’s Twitter Account

Updated: 11 September 2023

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Ethereum’s brainchild, Vitalik Buterin, recently faced a Twitter hack that led to the theft of a staggering $691,000. On Saturday, an unauthorized post caught the eye of many, announcing a set of special NFTs from Consensys, a software provider. The post included a malicious link, urging users to mint the NFTs by connecting their digital wallets. This was actually a ruse to empty out the followers’ wallets.

The drama unfolded quickly, with Crypto Twitter sounding the first alarms about the fraudulent post. It was Dmitriy “Dima” Buterin, Vitalik’s father, who seemed to be the first to confirm that his son’s account was compromised. The malicious tweet has since been removed, but the thief was quick to act. Blockchain sleuth @ZachXBT reported that within the first hour, the hacker made away with more than $147,000, a sum that rapidly escalated to a whopping $691,000.

Disregard this post, apparently Vitalik has been hacked. He is working on restoring access. https://t.co/2fjM0GhvIa

— dima.eth (@dimabuterin) September 9, 2023

Unfortunately, the consequences were immediate for the victims, who lost access to their digital funds. In the aftermath of the hack, Vitalik Buterin has yet to speak publicly on the matter. The only activity from him post-hack appears to be a retweet dated September 6. To add insult to injury, @ZachZBT also noted that the hacker sent one of the stolen NFTs back to Buterin’s account.

We don’t have exact numbers, but it’s clear that a number of people fell victim to the hack. This incident merely adds another chapter to the growing story of social media hacks that have resulted in the loss of millions of dollars in tokens. The issue of online security, especially on Twitter (X), has reignited debates. Among those questioning Twitter’s security protocols was Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. He criticized Twitter for lacking in features like two-factor authentication (2FA) that are essential in traditional financial accounts.

Be careful with phishing and other social engineering scams

Zhao suggested that more security features like 2FA are needed. He shared that even his own Twitter account had been under brute-force attack attempts before the “Elon era.” For those unfamiliar, brute forcing involves making multiple login attempts until one succeeds in cracking the code. Twitter does offer 2FA, but only for Twitter Blue subscribers.

Be careful with phishing and other social engineering scams. Best to enable 2FA with a hardware device (Yubikey) on all crypto exchanges. https://t.co/orI7Rw3npS

— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) July 21, 2023

Sadly, Hacks are Common in the NFT World

The question of how to compensate the victims has sparked debates, with some arguing that the responsibility should fall on the developers themselves. Hacks in the NFT community, unfortunately, aren’t new. Losses in the millions have been reported among collectors who believed they were interacting with legitimate projects.

Other attacks have targeted prominent NFT projects. One such example is Nouns, an Ethereum NFT project whose Twitter account was hacked this past June, resulting in 25 users losing NFTs worth about 42 ETH ($64,000 in today’s value). Another high-profile case involved the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which had its Instagram compromised in April, resulting in an estimated loss of about $2.8 million in NFTs. Yuga Labs, responsible for the project, stated they were working to contact those affected.

In summary, as the frequency of social media hacks rises in the NFT world, it’s increasingly important for users to be cautious about the links they interact with, and for platforms to beef up their security measures.