On August 21, cybercriminals hacked McDonald’s official Instagram account to drag off a rip-off that netted them over $700,000 in Solana (SOL).
The hackers promoted a pretend memecoin named after the restaurant’s purple mascot, Grimace.
Screenshots shared on social media present that they printed a number of posts in regards to the token, falsely presenting it as a “McDonald’s experiment on Solana” to the account’s 5.1 million followers.
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Blockchain analytics service Bubblemaps reported that the hackers acquired 75% of the Grimace token’s whole provide by way of Solana’s memecoin market, pump.enjoyable. They unfold these tokens throughout roughly 100 completely different wallets.
After the promotion, the market capitalization of the Grimace memecoin soared to $25 million in simply half-hour. Nevertheless, it dropped to round $650,000 because the hackers dumped their holdings.
Bubblemaps confirmed that the hackers profited considerably from the rip-off. They even modified McDonald’s Instagram bio to brag about their success, writing, “You simply have been rug pulled <…>, thanks for the $700,000 in Solana.”
All fraudulent posts and the edited bio have since been eliminated, as McDonald’s has regained management of its Instagram account. The corporate described the breach as an “remoted incident”, assured that the difficulty has been resolved, and apologized to its followers for any offensive content material posted in the course of the hack.
This incident highlights the rising dangers of social media platforms being exploited for crypto scams, serving as a reminder of the must be cautious.
Equally, in July, the X accounts Doja Cat, Sydney Sweeney, 50 Cent, and Hulk Hogan have been hacked to advertise memecoins named after them.
Gode is a Web3 Market Analyst who researches crucial trade occasions and interprets how they have an effect on the broader Web3 house. Her formal training in media tradition & digital rhetoric permits her to make use of a methodical strategy to evaluating essential Web3 information knowledge, together with large-scale occasions and the broader social sentiment throughout the ecosystem.Gode is a mutilingual skilled, having studied in a number of universities all throughout Europe. This permits her to have a one-of-a-kind alternative to investigate Web3 social sentiments spanning completely different cultures and languages and, in flip, develop a a lot deeper understanding of how the Web3 house is rising inside completely different communities. With the remainder of her staff, Gode works to determine essential crypto information patterns and supply unbiased and data-driven data.Gode’s passions embody working and speaking with individuals, and when she’s not researching Web3 information, she spends her time touring and watching true crime documentaries.
