The cryptocurrency data aggregator CoinGecko’s X (formerly Twitter) account and terminal were briefly compromised on January 10. The company has assured that it is taking immediate action to investigate the incident and secure the accounts. Users have been cautioned against engaging with suspicious content or clicking on any links.
During the brief period of the hack, a phishing scam link was posted on the company’s X account, falsely advertising a CoinGecko token airdrop. This post has since been removed. This incident follows a similar breach on January 9, where the X account of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was manipulated. Imposters posed as Chair Gary Gensler, falsely claiming that the SEC had approved several Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This post has also been removed.
However, a recent statement confirmed that the SEC has indeed approved spot Bitcoin ETFs offered by a number of companies including VanEck, Bitwise, Fidelity, Franklin, Valkyrie, Hashdex, Ark Invest, Grayscale, BlackRock, WisdomTree, and Invesco Galaxy. The digital asset market has been eagerly awaiting the decision on the Spot Bitcoin ETF case, with over a dozen companies having submitted applications to the SEC to offer this investment product. All of these Spot Bitcoin ETFs have now been approved by the SEC.
An investigation into the SEC hack revealed that the breach was due to the lack of two-factor authentication (2FA) on the SEC’s account, rather than any attacks on the infrastructure. X’s Safety team reported that the incident occurred when an unidentified individual used a third party to gain control over a phone number linked to the SEC account. This method of attack, known as SIM-card swap attacks, is a recurring issue in the Web3 community. These attacks occur when fraudsters, posing as the actual account owners, contact telecom providers and request them to change the victim’s phone number to one they control. This allows the fraudsters to gain access to the victim’s social media accounts linked to the phone number. A similar phishing attempt compromised the X account of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in September 2023.
In other news, Senator Cynthia Lummis is pushing for crypto-friendly regulation amidst SEC lawsuits, Google Cloud has announced the formation of a blockchain-specific team, and FTX-owned crypto exchange Liquid has paused all trading.
This News Article was automatically generated by Bob the Bot (AI)
| Information | Details |
|---|---|
| Geography | North America |
| Countries | 🇺🇸 |
| Sentiment | negative |
| Relevance Score | 1 |
| People | Gary Gensler, Cynthia Lummis, Vitalik Buterin |
| Companies | US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Google Cloud, BlackRock, CoinGecko, Hashdex, VanEck, Ark Invest, Bitwise, Fidelity, Franklin, Valkyrie, Invesco Galaxy, FTX-Owned Crypto Exchange Liquid, Grayscale, WisdomTree |
| Currencies | Ethereum, Bitcoin |
| Securities | None |
