Ethereum Co-founder Reveals Details Behind X Account Hack

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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared with the crypto group particulars of the latest hack of his X account. By way of a publish on the decentralized social media platform, Farcaster, on September 12, Buterin confirmed he had misplaced his X account to hackers by way of a SIM swap assault.

Vitalik Buterin Confirms SIM Swap Hack Was Behind $691,000 Theft

On September 9, hackers took over Vitalik’s Buterin X account and posted a hyperlink asserting the launch of pretend commemorative non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from software program firm Consensys.

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Utilizing this hyperlink, the dangerous actors stole $691,000 price of property from a few of Vitalik’s 4.9 million followers who had related their wallets to mint the supposed commemorative NFTs.

Replace: $691k drained (one other 33% in drainer payment handle) pic.twitter.com/AVIShqDlMU

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) September 9, 2023

Apparently, an X consumer with the deal with Satoshi_767 acknowledged that the exploit appeared as a SIM swap assault. This sort of hack happens when hackers management a goal’s cell phone quantity, utilizing it to entry their social media accounts, financial institution accounts, crypto wallets, and so on.

Nonetheless, this concept was disputed by on-chain investigator ZachXBT, who claimed Buterin’s prominence within the crypto group exposes the Ethereum co-founder to all kinds of assaults.

Three days later, Vitalik Buterin took to Farcaster, confirming the hack was attributable to a SIM swap assault. Nonetheless, he has now recovered entry to his SIM account. Buterin mentioned:

Lastly obtained again my T-mobile account (sure, it was a sim swap, that means that somebody socially-engineered T-mobile itself to take over my cellphone quantity).

As well as, the Ethereum co-founder suggested customers to take away their cellphone quantity from X, because it was “ample” to allow a password change, thus nullifying the two-factor authentication (2FA) safety system.

SIM Swap Assaults Stay On The Rise

The latest assault on Vitalik Buterin solely provides to the growing checklist of SIM swap assaults in the previous couple of months towards crypto buyers and founders.

In August, Bitcoinist reported that Bart Stephens, co-founder of Blockchain Capital, a enterprise capital agency, misplaced over $6.3 million price of property in a SIM swap hack.

In the meantime, the Gutter Cat Gang NFT venture additionally misplaced management of their X account to a SIM swap hack in July, resulting in the lack of $765,000 price of NFTs by the venture’s consumer group.

Zach XBT just lately posted on X that over $13.3 million have been misplaced to 54 SIM swaps within the final 4 months to emphasise how rampant these assaults are.

The on-chain investigator additionally kicked towards the 2FA authentication mechanism, urging crypto customers to make use of an authenticator app or safety key system.