The Paraguayan Red Cross Twitter account was hacked and used for posting a scam encouraging the users of the popular social media platform to visit a phishing website to receive a "gift" offered only once per user.
According to the post, the campaign was meant to support the crypto community through the XRP airdrop. It also said that Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, had initiated the campaign for the cryptocurrency.
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Twitter users continued to share the link even after it had been removed from the official Cruz Roja Paraguaya account.
The fraud was quickly identified by The Red Cross as a hacking attack. This is just one of the examples of scams related to Ripple on social media, especially on Twitter. The trick of impersonating Garlinghouse is particularly common among scammers targeting the cryptocurrency community. Hacking accounts of celebrities and famous organizations to promote scam is also a typical component of such frauds.
For example, in September 2022, the account of the Embassy of Oman in India was hacked. Also in this case, the scammers tried to make their actions look legitimate by using the identity of Ripple's CEO. Impostors announced the giveaway of 100,000,000 XRP while the price of XRP was around $0.42. Thus, the total value of the promised airdrop was more than $42 million.
A more recent notable Twitter scam involving Ripple took place in January 2023. The hacked account used to promote the cryptocurrency fraud belonged to GOL TV, an American TV sports channel. The perpetrator, posing as the Ripple CEO, also promised unrealistic profits:
“I can't wait to prove the haters when $XRP hits $1000.”
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Twitter users should be especially careful because tweets from hacked accounts usually have large support in the comments section, which can make them seem even more credible. They may also include comments from a fake account of the CEO of a crypto company issuing the cryptocurrency advertised in the scam, just like it was in the case of Garlinghouse.
Meanwhile, Certik, a security company that specializes in monitoring Web3 apps, smart contracts, and blockchains with AI, today reported the promotion of a wallet drainer by another Twitter account.
