Animoca Brands dispels claims of introducing a Solana-based token as speculations mount following a recent hack.
Amid the recent market euphoria and the holiday cheer, bad actors are looking to take advantage to rob unsuspecting crypto users of their hard-earned assets. In the latest instance, these bad actors have targeted followers of the well-known crypto venture capital firm Animoca Brands.
No Solana Token
Notably, Animoca Brands has warned followers that it is not launching any official token or NFT. The firm stressed this in a Thursday, December 26 X post disavowing a now-deleted pinned post from its chairman, Yat Siu.
The deleted post claimed that Animoca Brands was collaborating with Pump.fun to launch a token with the ticker MOCA on Solana, sharing a link for users to buy.
However, according to Animoca Brands, this post came from a hacker who had managed to compromise Yat Siu’s X account. The firm noted that it would release an update after recovering the account.
The exploit comes amid recent excitement around Moca Network, which also uses the MOCA ticker. Moca Network is a decentralized interoperable ecosystem built on Layer Zero and backed by Animoca Brands. Over the past seven days, MOCA, the native token of this ecosystem, has surged 142%.
A Phishing Attack
While Animoca Brands has yet to offer information about how Siu suffered the hack, prominent crypto sleuth ZachXBT has argued that the firm’s co-founder likely fell victim to a phishing email scam from a hacker that has stolen approximately $500,000 in the past month from 15 other similar exploits, including The Arena and Brett.
According to ZachXBT, this hacker typically impersonates the X team to warn of a non-existent copyright infringement and trick unsuspecting users into following a phishing link to enter their password or two-factor authentication code. After obtaining these details, they go on to launch meme coin scams using the X account.
The recent exploit is another instance highlighting the need for greater security consciousness among founders and projects in the crypto space. ZachXBT highlights that Siu could have prevented the hack if he had used a hardware security key.
DisClamier: This content is informational and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author's personal opinions and do not reflect The Crypto Basic opinion. Readers are encouraged to do thorough research before making any investment decisions. The Crypto Basic is not responsible for any financial losses.
