Hackers on X are pursuing popular accounts with gold and grey verified badges to conduct cryptocurrency scams, as seen with Mandiant’s this week.
A day after hijacking the prominent cybersecurity corp’s X account, hackers have compromised the X accounts of a Canadian senator, a nonprofit consortium and a Brazilian politician. Some were restored.
Hacking X Accounts for Organizing Scams
The last time we saw a hacking spree on X(formerly Twitter) was in 2021, when tens of prominent accounts were hijacked for promoting cryptocurrency scams and hackers reportedly earned millions of dollars.
Around three years later, we now see unknown hackers hijacking notable accounts for a similar cause. Yesterday, we saw Mandiant briefly losing it’s X account access to hackers for spreading a fake airdrop campaign.
A day after this, the Malware Hunter Team noted the accounts of Canadian senator Amina Gerba, nonprofit consortium ‘The Green Grid,’ and Brazilian politician Ubiratan Sanderson being hacked too. The breached access is used for promoting cryptocurrency scams, as in the past.
While it’s unknown who the perpetrators were, they had determined to target accounts with gold and grey verified badges for more impact. To the unknown, X offers the gold badge only for businesses, a grey badge for government offices and officials, and a blue badge to anyone who pays for it(X Premium subscription).
CloudSEK researchers noted that hackers breaching gold and grey badge accounts will sell their access in the underground forums, priced between hundreds to thousands of dollars. Some hackers also allow adding scam accounts as affiliates to the verified gold accounts for $500, giving them credibility without going through X’s verification system.
As they target dormant accounts with significant popularity, researchers warn users to review their account security settings and activate the two-factor authentication for better control.
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