A Coordinated Twitter Hack is Targeting Coinbase, Kucoin, Binance, Gemini, and More

Published at: July 15, 2020

A tweet from Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, suggests that shady activity is happening over on Binance's Twitter account. Similar nefarious tweets have popped up on the accounts of Gemini, Coinbase, CoinDesk, Kucoin, @Bitcoin, and numerous other companies. Individuals such as Justin Sun, Charlie Lee, King Cobie, AngeloBTC and others have also been targeted. Each tweet involves a scam Bitcoin (BTC) giveaway or trap.

CZ rang the alarm

"Do not click on this link," CZ tweeted on July 15 from his personal media page, providing a link to a recent post from Binance's breached twitter account, warning the public.

"Please report the @Binance account immediately," CZ added. As linked by CZ, Binance's account posted about an odd partnership and giveaway. Massive giveaways hold as a tell-tale sign of foul play.

"We have partnered with CryptoForHealth and are giving back 5,000 BTC to the community," Binance tweeted from its main Twitter account on July 15, spurring suspicion.

“The security team is actively investigating the situation of this coordinated attack on the crypto industry," a Binance representative told Cointelegraph on July 15.

As of press time, CZ's own personal Twitter account now shows activity indicating a breach.

Gemini, Coinbase, and Kucoin also face social media breaches

Shortly after the strange tweet from Binance's account, Coinbase's Twitter account posted the exact same tweet:

"We have partnered with CryptoForHealth and are giving back 5,000 BTC to the community," Coinbase's account tweeted on July 15, around 2:35 p.m. Central Standard Time.

Twitter pages from Gemini, Kucoin, the Tron Foundation, Bitfinex, and even media outlet CoinDesk all showed similar activity around the same timeframe.

Influencers hit differently

Numerous crypto Twitter influencer accounts also suffered hacks, including King Cobie, AngeloBTC and others. These accounts yielded different posts than the mentioned tweets boasting giveaways and partnerships.

A direct message from AngeloBTC showed the crypto trader opening a limited-time paid trading group on messaging platform Telegram, charging 0.1 BTC to members.

When the message respondent asked AngeloBTC about the validity of the message, the influencer replied he had been hacked, even while having two-factor authentication, or 2FA, protection enabled. Oddly, the attacker and the influencers seem to both have control of the account simultaneously. Other influencers showed similar signs and symptoms.

A recent YouTube scam has also plagued the crypto space in similar fashion during 2020, as many channels have touted fake giveaways. Ripple even opened a lawsuit against the social media platform for allowing videos touting fake XRP giveaways.