Watcher Guru’s X account was hacked, spreading fake XRP news; platform takes action to secure and investigate the breach - IcoHolder.
Watcher Guru, a prominent crypto news and updates platform, confirmed that its X (formerly Twitter) account was hacked on March 21. The breach led to the unauthorized posting of misleading content, including a fake announcement involving Ripple’s XRP token. The team quickly removed the post, issued a warning to its nearly 3 million followers, and secured the account.
At around 2:05 AM UTC, the hacker posted a claim suggesting that SWIFT, the global payments giant, was nearing an agreement with Ripple to use XRP for cross-border transactions. However, Watcher Guru promptly clarified that this post did not originate from their team and was instead the work of the attacker. The post was also automatically shared across the platform’s other channels, including Telegram, Facebook, and Discord, due to the use of an automated bot.
“Our X account has been hacked and the previous post (now deleted) was posted by a hacker. We have 2FA enabled and have taken extreme measures to avoid hacks,” the team wrote in a follow-up post.
The team suspects that the hack was initiated through a social engineering attack. On March 5, Watcher Guru received a suspicious X link via Telegram, which they believe may have been a phishing attempt. The link, which featured a “token” query string, seemed legitimate but was formatted in an unusual way. Despite notifying X’s head of cybersecurity, Watcher Guru did not receive a response at the time.
While the team cannot confirm a direct connection between the suspicious link and the hack, a similar incident occurred with DB News, another crypto news outlet, which also deployed two-factor authentication but was still breached by the same hacker.
As of now, Watcher Guru has not been able to identify the exact method or source of the attack. The platform reassured its followers that it has taken all necessary actions to secure the account and will continue investigating the incident. The team also emphasized that they are in contact with X's support team for further clarification.
This attack is part of a troubling trend, with several high-profile accounts recently targeted by hackers seeking to promote fraudulent projects, often involving meme coins. In February, luxury brand Dior's Instagram account was hacked to promote a fake Solana-based coin, which temporarily reached a $280,000 market cap before crashing.
Watcher Guru pledged to enhance its security measures moving forward and will provide updates as new information becomes available.
