The X account and terminal of cryptocurrency data aggregator CoinGecko experienced a brief compromise on January 10, prompting the company to initiate an immediate investigation and take measures to secure its accounts. CoinGecko cautioned users against clicking on any links or engaging with suspicious content.
During the January 10 incident, a phishing scam link was posted on CoinGecko's X account, falsely notifying users of a CoinGecko token airdrop. The post has since been removed. This follows a similar incident on January 9 when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account was compromised. Scammers utilized the account to share a seemingly authentic message from Chairman Gary Gensler, falsely claiming the SEC's approval of multiple Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications. The deceptive post has been deleted, and as of the current time, the SEC has not approved any spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Providing an update on the SEC hack, X clarified that the breach did not result from an attack on its infrastructure but was due to the absence of two-factor authentication (2FA) on associated SEC accounts. X's security team attributed the incident to "an unidentified individual gaining control of a phone number associated with the @SECGov account through a third party." This type of attack, known as SIM swapping, involves impersonating the account owner to the telecom issuer, resulting in the transfer of the victim's phone service to a number controlled by the attacker. This grants the attacker access to the victim's connected social accounts when access rights are compromised. Similar attacks have affected other prominent figures in the Web3 community, with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin experiencing a phishing attack on his X account in September 2023.
