Another popular crypto X account hacked, spreads fake Ripple-SWIFT partnership news

Crypto-focused media outlet Watcher Guru confirmed that its official X account was hacked to promote a fake report claiming Ripple and SWIFT were close to a deal to use XRP in global payment systems.

The unauthorized post went live on March 21 at 2:05 A.M. UTC. It falsely stated that Ripple would soon partner with SWIFT and that billions of XRP had been locked in escrow as liquidity reserves.

The post quickly gained attention and sparked excitement in the XRP community, with many users believing it was true. For context, Bitrue, a prominent pro-XRP crypto exchange, mistakenly shared the fake news, amplifying the confusion.

Shortly after, Watcher Guru clarified the situation, confirming that the post did not come from their team.

According to the media outlet:

“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.”

Due to automation, the same false report was also shared on Watcher Guru’s other social media accounts, including Telegram, Facebook, and Discord. The team said the reposting bot pushed the content to all channels before the issue was spotted.

Meanwhile, Watcher Guru stated that the attacker had blocked Ripple’s official X account and that of its CEO Brad Garlinghouse to “presumably slow down a ‘false report’ response from their team.”

This marks the second major breach of a prominent crypto platform on X. Earlier this week, DB News’ X account was hacked and used to spread a fake report about Donald Trump’s TRUMP memecoin and a false BlackRock ETF filing for Hyperliquid.

Understanding the breach

Watcher Guru believes the breach may have started weeks earlier as its team had received a suspicious X link through Telegram on March 5.

According to the team:

“We noticed the link was formatted in a strange way. It was an official X Developer staging site using X’s official domain, however it included a specific path and ‘token’ query string which X links do not normally have.”

Watcher Guru stated that its team flagged the link and contacted X’s Head of Cybersecurity, Christopher Stanley, but received no reply.

Watcher Guru continued that while it cannot confirm the link that caused the hack, the firm noted that its breach resembled that of DB News, another crypto media outlet.

According to Watcher Guru, its account, like DB News, had two-factor authentication enabled, no connected apps, and no API tokens were used to post the false information.

It concluded:

“At this time, we have not yet determined the exact source or method behind the hack. All unauthorized posts have been removed, and our account has been secured. We are contacting X for further clarification.”

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