Crypto scammers target Indian Premier League team to promote Solana token

Hackers took over Delhi Capitals’ X account using the popular cricket team’s social media presence and marketed a Solana-based scam token.

Delhi Capitals, a cricket team competing in the popular Indian Premier League, fell victim to an X breach where hackers took over the account to promote a Solana-based token with the code HACKER to the team’s over 2.6 million followers.

In now-deleted posts, the malicious actors claimed responsibility for the attack and announced their intention to “profit” by targeting other X accounts in order to inflate the price of the HACKER token, which was created about a day ago according to DEX scan data.

“We are hacking accounts, token addresses will be published on each account and tokens will be pumped,” the attackers wrote.

The attacker’s strategy is common in these types of attacks, where scammers use the large follower base of high-profile X accounts to promote crypto tokens. They artificially inflate the price of the token and then sell their previously acquired assets shortly thereafter, thus inflicting losses on unsuspecting investors who were in a rush to make a quick profit.

The criminals continued to make similar posts, announcing the contract address of the scam token and adding “search $HACKER to see our power.” Shortly after, Delhi Capitals management regained control of their account.

Meanwhile, searching for the term “$HACKER” on X turned up posts from another hacked account that shared screenshots of similar attacks on South Korean e-sports team T1 and other X accounts, with the same message but a different contract address.

However, the attacker’s efforts appear to have failed, with the HACKER token failing to gain much traction. At press time, the scam token had a market cap of just $4,300 and had only 46 transactions, most of which appeared to have been made by its creators shortly after the token was launched.

Hackers continue to find ways to bypass X’s security measures

However, these attacks appear to be part of a growing trend where scammers target high-profile X accounts to promote deceptive crypto tokens, raising concerns about the platform’s security. The social media giant has yet to address the issue.

On September 4, Lara and Tiffany Trump’s X accounts were simultaneously compromised in an attempt to mislead the public into purchasing a fake token themed around former president Donald Trump’s new decentralized finance project, World Liberty Financial.

A few days ago, French football star Kylian Mbappé was also the victim of a similar breach, with attackers carrying out a pump-and-dump scheme using the MBAPPE token.