The official X handle of a key Maharashtra government agency has visibly been seized by crypto hackers. On Monday, posts promoting a suspicious crypto token were published from the verified account of the Maharashtra Directorate General of Information and Public Relations (DGIPR). Soon after the appearance of this post, warnings of financial threats have started emerging among India’s crypto communities.
The Maharashtra DGIPR is reflects over 320,000 followers on X. The notorious cyber actors who took control of this account, did so, on Monday afternoon.
“The official coin of India is live on Zora,” said the post that came with an image of an Indian flag — carrying the words –“The Official Coin of India”. A link that read — “zora.co/@the_official_…” has also been pasted on the post to have unsuspecting individuals click on and meet with consequences.
The tweet now seems deleted. Regardless, community members are alerting each other against engaging with the post.
Such instances have become more and more common internationally, where crypto hackers take control of heavily followed public figures or official government accounts to promote scam tokens. Engaging with these suspicious posts could pose serious financial risks.
Last year, for instance, advertisements promoting malicious malware disguised as crypto tokens had flooded the YouTube channel of India’s Supreme Court. In December 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s X account was compromised and posts claiming that BTC was adopted as India’s legal tender were shared to spread misinformation and pump the token.
On-chain security firm Chainalysis, in its latest report, claimed that losses from crypto attack have resulted in the theft of $3.4 billion. Bitget’s hack of $1.5 billion emerged as the largest incident. Last week, Changpeng Zhao-backed Trust Wallet was hacked for at least $7 million.