On Christmas Day, another parliament member of the United Kingdom was targeted in a Twitter crypto scam. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan found her Twitter pic changed to Elon Musk’s current profile picture.
As the cyber attack took place at 7:30 PM on Christmas Day, the first thing the hacker did was reply to the real Elon Musk’s tweet: “Thank you for another great year! This feels a lot like Christmas.”
On top of that, the hacker went on to post a couple of tweets inviting crypto enthusiasts to a fake event, which included a “free crypto giveaway” in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and the real Elon Musk’s beloved canine coin Dogecoin (DOGE). The hoax portrayed Elon Musk smiling and wearing a bandana, while the headline “Tesla X Twitter: First Event” was meant to be as eye-catching as it gets.
Once a user presses on the link, it takes them to a phishing site where funds from crypto wallets can be easily siphoned in a few simple clicks. Phishing scams have been the go-to for internet scammers in 2022, with most of the biggest being tied to the Lazarus Group from North Korea.
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Cabinet Minister Promotes Elon Musk And Cryptocurrency After Apparent Twitter Hack https://t.co/7Awpfe3Sfy
— HuffPost UK (@HuffPostUK) December 26, 2022
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UK Officials – A Constant Target for Cybercriminals
Parliament members and governmental institutions of the United Kingdom seem to be a popular target for black-hat hackers. Firstly, it has been revealed that Russian spies tracked Liz Truss’s phone. In response, the UK Parliament received official advice from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to ramp up mobile device security.
The British Army suffered a massive setback when crypto scammers promoted a fake NFT collection titled “The Possessed” and included a couple of zombie screenshots on both the British Army’s Twitter and YouTube channels.
Apologies for the temporary interruption to our feed. We will conduct a full investigation and learn from this incident. Thanks for following us and normal service will now resume.
— British Army
(@BritishArmy) July 3, 2022
On the Flipside
- Twitter usage hit an all-time high after Musk’s acquisition. It generated a tsunami of social mentions for DOGE but also provided more opportunities for bad actors.
Why You Should Care
Cybersecurity is a top priority issue online, as 2022 has seen one of crypto’s most active years in hacks and scams.