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 cryptocurrency assets.
Reportsย by a Friday tweet by on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, the attacker utilized their illicit access to Aokiโs account to execute the scam by falsely claiming that the musician had joined the $PSYOP cryptoย token train and giving a link for users to claim free tokens.
Twitter Users Lose $170K to Scammers
Shortly after scammers posted the airdrop link using Aokiโs account, cryptocurrency influencer @eth_ben, retweeted the phishing scam post for โclout,โ reportsย by ZachXBT.
Inย doingย so, some Twitter users who clicked on the link to claim the free cryptoย 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
โ ZachXBT (@zachxbt) May 26, 2023
Phishing Scammers Targeting Cryptocurrency Users
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 victimโs accounts and potentially glean additional sensitive data.
The Aoki Twitter scam comesย after a series of sophisticated phishing frauds that have targeted cryptocurrencyย investors in recent months.
In February, CryptoPotato informed that attackers targeted the Ethereumย (ETH) Denver website to post a phishing link to dupe users out of their cryptocurrency. Nonetheless, the threat was quickly detected by cryptocurrency security company Blockfence.
Severalย months ago, blockchain-based metaverseย network company The Sandbox indicatedย that an unauthorized thirdย party managed toย win 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 goย up, investors must prioritize security and vigilance in managing their digital assets.
