12 September 2024
On Tuesday, Indian cricket fans were targeted by scammers with a Solana-based token. The attackers attempted to profit from sports fans after hacking Delhi Capitals’ X account. However, the scheme failed to gain much traction despite its peculiar efforts to publicize the memecoin.
Crypto Hackers’ New Promotional Method
Delhi Capitals, a team from the Indian Premier League (IPL), recently suffered a social media security breach. Hackers took control of the cricket team’s X account on Tuesday, targeting their 2.6 million followers. The attackers promoted a Solana-based token in a series of now-deleted posts, hoping to pump the price with their peculiar tactics.
Typically, hackers try to take advantage of public figures or institutions with large followings by posing as them. Most of the time, attackers promote Solana-based memecoins related to the hacked personality.
Scammers pretend these public figures have entered the crypto space, sometimes advertising fake collaborations with institutions within the industry. These methods usually deceive thousands of unsuspected users who invest money in these scams.
In this case, Delhi Capital hackers took a different approach. The scammers named their Solana memecoin “HACKER” and publicly declared they had unauthorized access to the account.
One of the posts stated, “Yes, this is a hacked account!” and claimed that they would “make profits” from it. The hackers revealed they use this method to boost their scams, repeatedly asking users to search for the ticker on X so they could see their “strength”:
We will make profits, WE hack accounts on each account the token address will be posted and the token will pump. Search $HACKER to see our strength!.
A quick search on X revealed that this wasn’t the attackers’ first rodeo. The ticker shows that the hackers previously attempted to scam crypto investors and sports fans with this method.
Per the report, Korean Esports team T1 and two crypto-related apps recently suffered similar security breaches. The respective posts displayed the exact message as Delhi Capitals but had a different Solana contract address.
Solana Memecoin Fails To Make Big Numbers
Solana memecoin scams have collected millions of dollars from users before. As reported by NewsBTC, several celebrities and companies have fallen victim to these schemes. Recently, hackers promoted a fake Solana token on McDonald’s official Instagram account.
The memecoin, themed after the character Grimace, surged over 400% to a market capitalization of $25 million in less than an hour. This resulted in approximately $700,000 in ill-gotten profits for the scammer.
Other rug pull scams have targeted the fan bases of personalities like Real Madrid player Kylian Mbappé, and former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. The latter resulted in a $17 million scam.
Nonetheless, the Delhi Capitals hackers failed to profit from the cricket team’s 2.6 million followers. The HACKER token didn’t surpass a market capitalization of $40,000 on the day of its creation and failed to reach half of that as the scam was taking place.
It’s worth noting that, during these types of scams, some investors consciously trade these fake tokens to profit from the hype before the scheme ends. This time, most of the token’s transactions appear to have been done by the hackers in preparation for their heist.
After the cricket team regained control of the X account and deleted all the HACKER-related posts, the token’s trading activity plummeted to zero. As of this writing, the Solana memecoin has a market cap of $4,300.