Nameless hackers took over the X account of the previous Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to advertise a faux meme coin. Hackers are leveraging the hype round US President Donald Trump’s meme coin for wider rug pulls.
This incident is one in every of a number of meme coin scams utilizing a political veneer. The previous President of Brazil was focused in an identical assault final month, however these hackers are most likely affiliated with the notorious Russian Evil Corp.
MALAYSIA: The Newest Faux Meme Coin
Social media scams are rising within the crypto area, and it’s onerous to inform the way to forestall them. In a very egregious instance, hackers used a former Malaysian prime Minister to shill a meme coin.
Mahathir Mohamad was the nation’s longest-serving Prime Minister, and his social media accounts started endorsing MALAYSIA:
“Malaysia’s Official Cryptocurrency MALAYSIA is Now Dwell on Solana! This marks a big milestone in showcasing the energy of our individuals and out nation’s presence within the digital economic system. It’s an honor for us to show Malaysia’s energy on the worldwide crypto community,” the fraudulent social media publish claimed.
The publish was eliminated inside an hour, however the injury was performed. Evaluation exhibits that these hackers had been most likely associated to the notorious Evil Corp, and that they managed to steal $1.7 million on this rug pull.
Based on information from GeckoTreminal, the token’s market cap jumped to $1.7 million in simply quarter-hour after the faux tweet and shortly collapsed. The hackers had been capable of liquidate this quantity in lower than an hour.
This MALAYSIA rip-off is only one element of a rising pattern of faux political meme cash. Since scammers used the TRUMP token to steal $857 million, it’s been open season.
A former Brazilian President was hacked to shill one faux token, and one other claimed to symbolize the US Treasury. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin formally raised the alarm about this pattern.
Nevertheless, these scams aren’t simply restricted to political subjects. Crypto sleuth ZachXBT claimed that Coinbase customers misplaced at the very least $150 million to scammers, and Rip-off Sniffer reported a 2000% improve in Telegram-based phishing assaults since November.
Finally, it doesn’t seem like these scams are going wherever anytime quickly. Analysts have speculated that the rise of meme cash has destroyed altcoin season by redirecting capital funding and neighborhood curiosity to this sector.
If meme cash have this a lot energy, faux tokens will proceed receiving speculative investments.
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