On Friday, July 7, Aptos Network alongside its CEO’s Twitter account was compromised, leading to a deceptive announcement of an airdrop. Simultaneously, the multi-chain Fantom bridge lost $126 million in a new cyber attack after falling victim to an attack from hackers.
On Friday, Aptos network and its CEO’s Twitter account Mo Shaikh posted a misleading update regarding an airdrop, urging everyone to participate in the airdrop so that they can be beneficiaries of free APT on Aptos network, the tweet also stated that over $1 million had already been claimed, falsely persuading people to participate in the airdrop.
Per a tweet by the hacked Aptos CEO’s account, the hacker stated that “$APT is showing potential to topple all other coins.”
It was a while after the event that Aptos Labs clarified through a tweet that Aptos Foundation Twitter account and its CEO have been compromised.
“We’ve received official communication from Aptos Foundation that @Aptos_Network has been compromised. The latest tweet regarding an $APT airdrop is fraudulent,” Aptos Labs Tweeted.
Simultaneously, Multi-chain’s Fantom bridge was hit with an attack by cyberpunks, resulting in the hackers draining $126 million from the protocol.
“The lockup assets on the Multichain MPC address have been moved to an unknown address abnormally. The team is not sure what happened and is currently investigating,” the protocol wrote in a tweet on Friday.
“It is recommended that all users suspend the use of Multichain services and revoke all contract approvals related to Multichain,” it added.
The crypto drained in the attack includes wBTC, Circle’s USDC, DAI, Link, and wETH. Multichain advised users to suspend the use of its services and revoke all contract approvals. The CEO of the Fantom Foundation Michael Kong also confirmed that the matter is currently under investigation.
These events underscore the continuous security challenges in the crypto industry, with hundreds of millions lost due to hacks and phishing scams in 2023 alone. The largest incident this year was Euler Finance’s $197 million loss in March due to a flashloan exploit. The Multichain incident is the second-largest hack of the year. Atomic Wallet also suffered a significant loss of $100 million due to a private key compromise.
