The Twitter account of American music producer and DJ Steve Aoki has been compromised and used to conduct a phishing scam that led to the loss of at least $170,000 worth of crypto assets.
According to a Friday tweet by on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, the attacker utilized their illicit access to Aoki’s account to ute the scam by falsely claiming that the musician had joined the $PSYOP token train and giving a link for users to claim free tokens.
Shortly after scammers posted the airdrop link using Aoki’s account, crypto influencer @eth_ben, retweeted the phishing scam post for “clout,” according to ZachXBT.
As a result, some Twitter users who clicked on the link to claim the free tokens ended up losing about $170,000 in ether (ETH) to the scammers.
Congrats to @eth_ben who decided it was a good idea to quote tweet a phishing scam posted by the compromised @steveaoki account for clout causing his followers to lose around ~$170k
0xFB2E132751628025D94a17245288364cd62532D0 pic.twitter.com/ih7e0cgjhU
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) May 26, 2023
Phishing scams are a common form of social engineering where attackers trick users into revealing their login credentials. Once the attackers obtain this information, they can access the victim’s accounts and potentially glean additional sensitive data.
The Aoki Twitter scam follows a series of sophisticated phishing frauds that have targeted crypto investors in recent months.
In February, CryptoPotato reported that hackers targeted the Ethereum Denver website to post a phishing link to dupe users out of their crypto. However, the threat was quickly detected by crypto security firm Blockfence.
A few months ago, blockchain-based metaverse company The Sandbox stated that an unauthorized third party managed to gain access to the computer of one of its employees and used the information it found to send an email falsely claiming to be from The Sandbox.
As the number and scale of cryptocurrency-related phishing scams continue to climb, investors must prioritize security and vigilance in managing their digital assets.
