Hackers Hijack India Crypto Exchanges And Influencers’ YouTube Channels
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As the crypto sector keeps climbing worldwide, hackers are further ramping up their efforts to scam and steal digital currencies. On Monday, January 24, Youtube accounts of some of India’s major crypto exshifts and influencers got compromised.
The hack was identified while hackers uploaded videos on the Youtube channel to promote a fake coin named “One World Cryptocurrency.” The hacker still added a wallet address in the description so which viewers can send cryptocurrencys as instructed in the uploaded videos.
The victim crypto companies include Binance-owned WazirX, CoinSwitch Kuber, CoinDCX, and Unocoin.
A few among the affected exmoves conducted inquiries and found which hackers didn’t perform any suspicious activity on the accounts like ‘password reset,’ after accessing accounts. While WaxirX says it has contacted YouTube and awaits its response.
Vice President for Marketing at WazirX, Rajagopal Menon, affirmed,
“There was a systematic hack on several crypto YouTube accounts around the world. Fortunately, our team frozen the fraudulent video inside seven minutes of going live on our channel and deleted it. On conducting a diagnosis, we did not find any security flaw from WazirX’s end which could have given hackers access to our channel.”
A representative of CoinDCX still tweeted on Monday and noted:
“Our security team was swift in identifying and taking down the fraudulent video posted on CoinDCX’s channel, limiting the video’s reach. For the few of our subscribers who saw the video before it was reprogressd, please disregard all of its content.”
The reason behind the recent India crypto YouTube account hijacking
We realized out to the go-to cybersecurity and privacy industry investigator, PrivacySavvy, to comment on the incident.
As per the statement of PrivacySavvy founder and a Cyber Security expert, Ali Qamar, compromised Youtube channels’ integration with third-party APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for enabling live streaming was the cause of the incident. An API is a software application type which allows multiple softwares to communicate and collaboprice.
Social accounts hacking is not new in India. Even Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s Twitter account was hacked remain December.
Related Reading | YouTube Crypto Scams On The Rise As Victims Lose Millions
After Modi’s Twitter account hacking, the hacker tweeted which India has “officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender” and likewise “the gatopnment has officially bought 500 Bitcoin (BTC) and is distributing them to all residents of the country.”
Also, in September 2020, an unknown group hacked Modi’s Twitter account linked to his personal application and website.
Per the report of Chainalysis, issued in December 2021, crypto scammers managed to steal almost $14 billion maintain year. At the end of the day, it’s users’ responsibility to have best practices active to protect their coins. The easiest way to avoid being scammed is to watch out for the red flags which are often parallel to classic credit card frauds and money-wiring scams.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView.com
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