Cyber Attackers Used Ripple CEO’s Identity To Promote Fake Giveaways

Cyber attackers again successfully hacked the official Twitter account of Brazilian professional mixed martial artist Michel Pereira’s and impersonated Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. They used the Ripple CEO’s identity to promote fake giveaways.

The hacker replaced Michel Pereira’s image with Garlinghouse’s profile picture with the caption, “XRP is the future! Definitely!”. Within a few hours, some users identified the scam and reported it to the website.

Earlier, Ripple CEO alerted users about cyber attackers targeting popular crypto personalities on social media to promote fake giveaways. 

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report, more than 46,000 crypto users have lost nearly $1 billion (USD) in cryptocurrency scams. In the past few years, many cyber cases have remained unsolved.

According to CoinMarketCap, XRP went up by 0.69% in the past 24 hours at $0.35.

Earlier Ripple CTO Alerted Users About Fake XRP Staking

David Schwartz, Ripple CTO, cautioned XRP holders about the recent phishing scam that attacked users using a fake Ripple website. Apparently, the attackers promised users XRP staking with high returns via emails. A cloned Binance website was used to send the spam emails.

On December 10, 2022, Schwartz warned about the fake Ripple website on Twitter. As per the tweet, the scammers sent a mail stating that “Ripple Labs Co., announced a new premium feature that offers incentive premium and high ROI, from 16% to 31%, with a secured fund of over five billion XRP.”

Alert! ripple.org.ph is a scam site.

Schwartz had identified a phony Ripple website link in an email. He stated, “This email does not come from Binance and just uses Binance’s name. The scam does not appear to be connected to Binance in any way.” Schwartz alerted the users to pay attention to the official announcements by the company.

Ripple Scored Minor Win In Ongoing Legal Suit

In the ongoing legal battle, the federal judge granted a joint motion from all parties to extend the deadline for Daubert motions. After the announcement, Ripple and SEC submitted a joint motion to extend the time until January 13, 2023, to file the Daubert motions. Judge Analisa Torres ruled in favor of Ripple, allowing the firm to redact documents connected with Daubert motions.

James K. Filan, a defense lawyer, tweeted, “Both parties file joint motions for an extension of time, until January 13, 2023, to file the Daubert Motions and accompanying exhibits on the public docket with redactions consistent with the court’s December 19, 2022 sealing ruling.”

Nancy J. Allen
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Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/12/25/cyber-attackers-used-ripple-ceos-identity-to-promote-fake-giveaways/