Unknown suspects have hacked Robinhood’s Twitter account to promote a scam crypto token. The 25 January tweet urged over a million Robinhood followers to buy the RBH token.
The anonymous poster urged people to pay for RBH at $0.0005 each token, which uses the Binance Smart Chain. According to Conor Grogan, Coinbase’s head of product business operations, roughly 10 people had purchased around $1,000 USD of the fake crypto tokens.
Grogan said at the time: “Looks like Robinhood’s social media was hacked. They only got ~10 people to bite on the scam token before the link was taken down. So far the token has only seen <$1000 in purchases. I imagine people crowding in now saw the volume spike and ar looking for a thrill.”
Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao added his company’s security teams had locked the account of the tweet and it had launched pending investigations.
He said in a tweet at the time: “Looks like Robinhood account got hacked and was promoting a coin on BNB Chain. Always have critical thinking even [if] the account looks or is real.”
Currently, Robinhood does not facilitate RBH purchases, but investors can purchase exposure by buying HOOD shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
The news comes after a major CertiK report in early January, which stated 2023 would continue ongoing trends in hacking, fraud, and other cybercrime.
The report found malicious attacks, hacking, scams, and phishing incidents were set to increase over this year, with last year totalling $3.7 billion in losses. November cost markets roughly $595 million USD in token scams, becoming the worst month of the year.
