Vertcoin’s Twitter account has been compromised in an attempt to facilitate a cryptocurrency giveaway scam.
On May 1, near 20:13 UTC, the account posted that it was “pleased to announce” a bitcoin giveaway, mimicking other Twitter scams which have promised high rewards to followers in exchange for small amounts of cryptocurrencies, usually bitcoin and ethereum.
The hijacking was especially notable given that the account has a Twitter “blue check,” meaning that those behind the account (prior to the attack) have been verified by the social media company.
https://twitter.com/Vertcoin/status/991410217173696512
Almost as soon as the account issued the fraudulent tweet, James Lovejoy, the project’s lead developer, disclosed the attack and said that Twitter Support had been contacted. He also warned that any giveaways offered would be fake.
Similarly, a moderator of the cryptocurrency’s Discord server warned users to “not believe or share anything you see posted there until confirmed here that we have regained control.”
The @Vertcoin twitter account has been compromised. We have contacted @TwitterSupport. DO NOT accept any giveaways, they are all fake.
— James Lovejoy (@jamesl22) May 1, 2018
As of press time, the post has yet to be taken down by Twitter staff. According to data from Blockchain, no transactions were found for the address listed by the compromised account.
Other accounts have been targeted by would-be scammers hoping to use publicly notable accounts in order to dupe crypto-holders.
In one notable incident, filmmaker Seif Elsbei’s account was hacked, which was then used to impersonate half a dozen different startups, developers and exchanges over a three-day period.
Image via Vertcoin Twitter; Twitter image via Shutterstock