Animoca Brands Co-Founder Yat Siu's X account Hacked to Promote Fraudulent MOCA Token

The X account of Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands, was hacked in a scheme to promote a fraudulent token. The breach is part of a series of attacks targeting crypto accounts in the past month.

Cryptocurrency company Animoca Brands announced on Monday that the X account of its co-founder Yat Siu was hacked in a scheme to promote a fraudulent token. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT highlighted that the breach is part of a series of attacks targeting crypto accounts in the past month, netting attackers $500,000.

Yat Siu’s X Account Used To Promote Fake MOCA Token

Animoca Brands disclosed in a statement on Dec. 26 that Siu’s X account was compromised. The company added,

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The hacker used Siu’s account to share a link to a fake token named Animoca Brands (MOCA), which was falsely linked to the firm and its Mocaverse NFT collection. The token launched on Solana’s memecoin platform, Pump.fun, with no official connection to Animoca Brands.

After Siu’s account promoted the fake MOCA token, the newly launched asset hit a peak market cap of $36,700, according to data from Birdeye. However, within seconds, the token’s value crashed, dropping to $7,700. As of now, the token’s market cap is roughly $6,200, with the trading activity on Pump.fun largely disappearing.

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT noted that the fake MOCA token was deployed by the same address that is linked to several other fraudulent tokens. According to the investigator, these scams have helped attackers net over $500,000 in the past month.

Phishing Attack Led To Yat Siu’s X Account Hack – ZachXBT

ZachXBT highlighted that the attackers used a phishing attack to gain access to Siu’s X account. The investigators explained that the attackers impersonated members of the X team and sent copyright infringement notices to the victim. These notices directed Siu to a phishing website where he was prompted to enter his password and two-factor authentication (2FA) credentials, which were then harvested by the attackers.

The phishing attack has reportedly targeted at least 15 crypto-focused X accounts since Nov. 26. The first incident involved Bitcoin infrastructure provider RuneMine, and the latest attack before Siu’s hack was against crypto trading site Kick on Dec. 24.

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