KuCoin Twitter Hack Causes $22,000 Loss in Customer Funds

The official Twitter handle of KuCoin exchange has suffered an attack, leading to the loss of $22,000 in customer’s funds. The brief attack was promptly contained and the handle has been reclaimed.

The attack took place for just 45 minutes, and the attackers used to handle to promote a fake activity, during which 22 transactions connected with the activity were identified. The transactions included Bitcoin and Ethereum, adding up to 22,628 USDT.

Luckily, the Twitter account was the only channel that came under the attack and no real damage done other than the $22,000 stolen. The exchange also assures that all affected customers will be reimbursed while investigations are ongoing into the attack to avoid a future occurrence.

5/ In addition to Twitter's existing 2FA, the KuCoin team will implement additional security measures to fortify the protection of our social media accounts. We are also conducting a thorough investigation of the incident with Twitter to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

— KuCoin (@kucoincom) April 24, 2023

Twitter Attacks Becoming Common

Scammers have now resorted to hacking Twitter accounts of prominent personalities and organizations to promote their fake offers. They mostly target famous accounts because of the large following and to leverage their credibility to earn their followers’ trust.

Just recently, an Indian governor’s account was hacked to promote a fake XRP airdrop. The attack lasted for about 12 hours, during which time the hackers released several tweets promoting their scam. While it wasn’t clear of any of his followers fell for it, the possibility could not be ruled out, which means some could have lost money in the process.

For KuCoin, the team was swift in detecting the illegal activity and got it under control. The case would have been much worse if it had lasted up to 12 hours as was the case of the Indian official. If they could steal $22,000 in 45 minutes, imagine what could have been done in 12 hours.

This only goes to show how dangerous the internet is, especially for crypto investors. Scammers are inventing new ways to steal funds from investors, which calls for utmost caution in handling crypto accounts. Hackers are also exploring any weaknesses they can find in platforms such as crypto exchanges, wallets and other platforms.

For example, Trust wallet suffered an attack recently that affected users with wallet addresses generated on the browser wallet in November 2022. The attack which exploited a vulnerability in the wallet’s software library led to the loss of $170,000 in customer funds.

Although Trust Wallet promised to reimburse affected users just like KuCoin has promised, these attacks are a real concern for crypto investors. It is even of greater concern now that there are several predictions of the commencement of a bull market to be led by Bitcoin.

KuCoin’s Efforts at Fighting Scams

KuCoin is one of the top crypto exchanges in the world, which makes it a reasonable target for scammers. However the exchange has in its own way tried to warn its customers concerning scams and how to avoid them. The exchange has on its website created awareness around scams and other efforts to steal crypto assets.

These can come in the form of fake websites, phishing attacks, and mobile device scams which try to steal users’ personal details to access their accounts. It isn’t only KuCoin that should worry about scams though, since every crypto user is exposed to the same level of danger.

Some ways to avoid falling for scams are using 2-fsctor authentication to secure your account, using a strong password with a mix of letters, numbers and symbols, and not clicking random links sent to your via email or other channels.