Crypto Scammers Hack the British Army’s Twitter and YouTube Pages
- Crypto scammers have stolen at least $1 billion since the year began.
- DeFi protocols are most likely to suffer attacks including, unsuspecting organizations with weak security measures.
Crypto hacks have been on the increase in recent days, but none would have imagined that these scammers would attempt to forcefully seize control of social media accounts belonging to the British Army. News recently emerged that the hackers were in control of several social media accounts belonging to the British army for about four hours.
The hackers took the chance to promote a series of phishing links and scams. The unknown scammers were seen marketing at least two fake variants of The Possessed and BAPESCLAN NFT collections. A screenshot shows the scammer pinning a post to a phony mint of The Possessed NFT collection. This tweet contained a phishing link, which, if activated, would drain users’ cryptocurrency wallets of their assets. One of the collection’s creators, Tom Watson, alerted his followers to the false material and requested that they report it.
The crypto scammers took things a step further and posted livestream recordings of false interviews with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk on the army’s YouTube which they renamed and made to look like the Ark Invest. These videos attracted thousands of viewers.
A Twitter user, Monseuir Rules, later raised an alarm over the false activities on the YouTube page, warning people not to click any links attached. He wrote,
the British Army’s YouTube page, still under the control of some crypto scammers, is running 4 consecutive livestreams with approx 19,000 people watching as we speak. would be interesting if any of them who fall for the scam could have grounds to sue the Army
The uploaded clips on the hacked YouTube channel advertised other cryptocurrency giveaway scams using QR codes and asked viewers to contribute cryptocurrency to them in the hopes of receiving double back.
The UK Army Confirms the Hack
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) Press Office later confirmed the hack, adding that an investigation was ongoing. The office later released an update, noting that the breach had been resolved and it had regained control of its Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter handles. The military body did not share further details about the ugly incident, saying that it would do so after further investigations. The Ministry of Defence wrote,
The breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts that occurred earlier today has been resolved and an investigation is underway. The Army takes information security extremely seriously and until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further.
The breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts that occurred earlier today has been resolved and an investigation is underway.
— Ministry of Defence Press Office (@DefenceHQPress) July 3, 2022
The Army takes information security extremely seriously and until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further.
At this point, it is unclear who carried out the attack, how they succeeded, or how many users may have been duped by the fraudulent and hoax links. The British Army has since removed all of the tweets, links, and related content from the compromised accounts. But these activities call for concern as the number of hacks has hugely increased. Organizations have lost billions of dollars to crypto scammers in 2022 alone. This figure mirrors the urgent need for fresh security measures.
Lawrence has covered some exciting stories in his career as a journalist, he finds blockchain-related stories very intriguing. He believes Web3 will change the world and wants everyone to be a part of it.
