This Week in Crypto Social Media Breaches Drive Quarterly Losses of 573 Million
### Story Highlights
The cryptocurrency industry has been rocked by a turbulent Q2 of 2024, marked by escalating scams and hacks that have collectively drained over $573 million. Key incidents, including a significant breach at CoinStats and widespread social media hijackings, underscore the vulnerability of digital assets.
### CoinStats Breach: A Critical Setback
CoinStats, a leading cryptocurrency platform, reported a severe security breach on June 22, resulting in a $2 million loss from user wallets. The breach, attributed to a sophisticated social engineering attack, involved malware and compromised AWS credentials of an employee. While CoinStats swiftly contained the breach, approximately 1.3% of its wallets were compromised.
Narek Gevorgyan, CEO of CoinStats, issued an apology and pledged support for affected users, though specific refund plans are yet to be finalized.
### High-Profile Hacks: Social Media and Crypto Frauds
Recent weeks witnessed a wave of high-profile social media breaches, particularly on platform X, exploited to promote fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes. Among the notable incidents:
– Hackers commandeered the Seven Network’s YouTube channel to propagate a counterfeit video featuring an AI-generated Elon Musk endorsing a crypto scam, garnering over 100,000 views before removal.
– The official Twitter account of Metallica was compromised to promote a deceptive Solana token named METAL, which briefly spiked to $300 per token before crashing. Metallica’s management has since regained control and deleted the misleading posts.
– Rapper 50 Cent’s Twitter account fell prey to hackers promoting a new token called GUNIT, experiencing a staggering 8,000% surge in value before plummeting, yet maintaining a market cap around $150,000.
– Billionaire investor Mark Cuban faced a phishing attack on his phone, compromising his Gmail account. This incident follows a previous loss of approximately $870,000 from Cuban’s crypto wallet earlier in the year.
### Rising Trends: Hack and Scam Statistics
The second quarter of 2024 witnessed a sharp escalation in cryptocurrency-related hacks and scams, totaling losses of $572.7 million according to Immunefi. This marks a 70.3% increase from the $336.3 million lost in the previous quarter and nearly doubles the $265.5 million reported in Q2 2023.
With crypto hacks occurring almost weekly, the surge highlights the critical necessity for reinforced security measures within the industry.
### Read Also:
– [Crypto Hack Report Q1 2024: Trends, Losses, and Recovery Efforts](#)
– Cryptocurrency: High risk, high reward… and evidently, high susceptibility to scams. What’s your take?
### Tags
Hack