Vitalik Buterin's X Account Was Hacked: $700,000 Is Stolen
Even the most influential minds in the crypto space are not immune to the hackers' attacks. Last weekend, the drama unfolded with the hacking of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin's X account, which led to about $700,000 being stolen.
On Saturday, Buterin's X page (formerly Twitter) posted a message about the launch of "commemorative" NFTs from Consensys. Buterin's 4.9 million followers saw the link, but not all of them guessed that it was fake. Users were offered to connect their wallets for NFT mint. But in reality, the hacker was fraudulently emptying their wallets.
The hacker's hook worked quickly. He lured his victims with the message that the offer was limited. Soon, users started complaining about losing access to funds. Within the first hour, the hacker managed to steal $147,000, according to blockchain analyst ZachXBT. He also reported that the hacker sent Buterin one of the stolen NFTs. The first confirmation of Buterin's account being hacked was a message from his father Dmitry. He said his son was actively trying to regain access to his account. It is still unknown whether Vitalik Buterin has regained access to his X account.
Disregard this post, apparently Vitalik has been hacked. He is working on restoring access. https://t.co/2fjM0GhvIa
— dima.eth (@BlockGeekDima) September 9, 2023
Ethereum developer BookyPooBah is known to be one of the victims. He lost several NFTs, including two CryptoPunks, #3983 and #1751. The value of one such token was 153 ETH. The list of stolen tokens also includes Milady 4755, Meebit #9965 and Meridian #918.
WARNING! I JUST LOST A FEW PUNKS!
— luckytimes.eth beautifuldaytobealive.eth (@BokkyPooBah) September 9, 2023
DON'T INTERACT! pic.twitter.com/lS4VvlHdVa
How did Ethereum react?
Regardless of the situation, Ethereum reacted resiliently. News of Buterin's hack led to only a minor loss of 0.5% in the value of ETH. On Monday, the market opened with a minor 0.3% loss in ETH. At the time of writing, the value of the asset was $1,611.
Source & Copyright TradingView
The incident led to a long debate over how Ethereum developers should resolve the issue and return users' assets. In addition, many people also criticized X's management, questioning the platform's security measures. Among them was Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who highlighted X's security is not designed well.
Vitalik's Twitter account got hacked. Use common sense when reading content on social media, even from large KOLs.
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) September 10, 2023
Twitter's account security is not designed as financial platforms. It needs quite a bit more features: 2FA, login id should be different from handle or email, etc.… pic.twitter.com/oYQch8r2H0
While the community speculates about whether the hackers gained access to Buterin's account through SIM swapping or Pink Drainer, one thing remains important: fraudulent attacks are becoming more frequent and the methods more sophisticated.
Changpeng Zhao Elon Musk Vitalik Buterin Binance
