Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin was attacked by an X hacker who stole $691,000 from users via a corrupted link in his tweet promoting NFTs. Buterin has remained silent about the hack, and concerns have been raised for his safety, as the hacker even transferred a stolen NFT to him.
Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin appears to have been targeted by an X hacker, resulting in the theft of $691,000 from users who clicked on a corrupt link he shared on his Twitter account.
The breach came to light last Saturday when a post on Buterin’s Twitter account announced the launch of a collection of commemorative non-fungible tokens (NFT) from software provider Consensys. This malicious link, potentially visible to many of its 4.9 million followers, led unsuspecting people to connect their wallets to mint the NFT. However, it only allowed the hacker to siphon off their funds.
Crypto Twitter users quickly raised the alarm about the fraudulent link. However, the initial hint of Buterin’s hacking came from his father, Dmitriy “Dima” Buterin. Although the post has since been deleted, the damage has already been inflicted and several victims have reported losing access to their wallet funds.
On a post on X dated September 9, “Dima” Buterin told users to “Disregard this post, apparently Vitalik has been hacked. He is working on restoring access.”
Within an hour, it appeared that the hacker had absconded with more than $147,000, but this sum quickly increased to $691,000, as revealed by blockchain researcher ZachXBT.
Buterin’s Silence and the Suspicious NFT Transfer
The day after the initial report of the attack, Buterin refrained from making public statements about the incident. His most recent post remains a retweet of a message from September 6. Additionally, ZachXBT noted that the hacker transferred a stolen NFT to Buterin.
The exact number of affected users remains uncertain. Still, this recent development contributes to a growing series of social media attacks that have resulted in substantial amounts of tokens being stolen. With numerous losses accumulating, there has been an ongoing discussion about whether developers should take responsibility for compensating victims for their losses.
Additionally, Binance CEO Chang Peng Zhao criticized the security of the Twitter account, stating that it lacks the strength of traditional financial account security, raising concerns about the overall security of the X platform:
“Vitalik’s Twitter account got hacked. Use common sense when reading content on social media, even from large KOLs. Twitter’s account security is not designed as financial platforms. It needs quite a bit more features: 2FA, login id should be different from handle or email, etc. In the past, I have had my Twitter account locked a few times due to hackers trying to brute-force it (trying different passwords repeatedly). This was before the Elon era,” posted CZ on X on September 10.
Effect of Security Breach on ETH Performance
This security breach might influence the general perception of ETH. According to Santiment data, there has recently been a significant decline in overall sentiment towards ETH.
Furthermore, the price of Ethereum saw a decline. Currently, Ethereum is trading at $1,593, indicating a decline in its value.
Despite this price drop, the count of Ethereum addresses containing non-zero balances continued to rise. According to Glassnode data, the number of addresses with non-zero balances reached an all-time high of 105,721,874.
By Leonardo Pérez
