Scammers have hacked the official Twitter account of the Embassy of Oman in India, replacing the profile picture with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and using the reply function to spam users with fake XRP giveaway phishing links.
The Twitter account OmanEmbassy_Ind showed several retweets matching those of Garlinghouse, seemingly in an attempt to make the activity look legitimate. The hacked account has been responding to tweets using the hashtag XRP, encouraging users to sign up for a fake giveaway of 100 million tokens, worth more than $42 million at an XRP price of $0.42.
The hackers behind the attack may have been responsible for breaching India-based crypto exchange CoinDCX’s Twitter account, given the similar fake giveaways. CoinDCX reported that it had restored access to its account. While the crypto exchange’s Twitter account had more than 230,000 followers, the Embassy of Oman in India only showed 4,119.
Many hackers have used social media to attempt to scam unsuspecting users out of both crypto and fiat since the platforms were created. Using high-profile figures in the crypto space like Garlinghouse, Elon Musk, and others is a common tactic. In June, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission reported that scammers had pilfered roughly $1 billion in crypto from 2021 to the first quarter of 2022, with half of all crypto-related scams originating from social media platforms.
