The Twitter account of Circle’s Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy Dante Disparte was compromised sometime around 1:35 PM UTC on Wednesday. Disparte’s account was used to promote a fake USDC airdrop by tweeting a phishing link via a thread. The phishing scam attempted to lure would-be victims by offering a “one-time bonus of USDC to all existing holders”.
Both the company and its CEO Jeremy Allaire confirmed that Disparte’s account was indeed hacked on Wednesday. Shortly after, the tweets were hidden by the account as crypto Twitter community members rang the alarm bells to warn other users of the scam.
The official Twitter account for the company said investigations into the account breach were on.
@ddisparte Twitter account was hacked. https://t.co/pItTHAG9Al
— Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) March 22, 2023
This Twitter account (@ddisparte) has been taken over by a scammer. Any links to offers are scams. We are investigating the situation and taking action accordingly.
— Circle (@circle) March 22, 2023
Some users theorized that the phishing scammer was able to access Disparte’s account through a Twitter two-factor authentication loophole.
Phishing scams and attempts such as these are not alien to the crypto Twitter community. Scammers have drained hundreds of thousands of dollars by tweeting phishing links from verified accounts, companies, and high-profile names like Elon Musk, Barack Obama, and Uber.
In 2020, a crypto phishing campaign attacked over 130 high-profile Twitter accounts and promoted a Bitcoin scam to drain funds from unsuspecting users. Three Twitter employees were later arrested in July 2020 for arming scammers with social engineering tools needed to enact their BTC phishing plan.
Phishing Scammers Taps USDC Saga To Shakedown Circle Users
The breach on Circle Disparte’s Twitter account comes amid a downturn in USDC’s market cap after the company faced a U.S. banking crisis. Federal banking regulators seized Silicon Valley Bank after a bank run supposedly crippled liquidity at SVB.
Circle held $3.3 billion of its stablecoin reserves at SVB, prompting panic among stablecoin holders as USDC depegged from the U.S. dollar. The stablecoin later regained its 1:1 dollar peg and Circle announced progress with Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) regarding recovering its USDC reserves from SVB
