El Universal's Twitter account is hacked to promote a 'Goblintown' NFT scam
On June 4, 2022, the verified Twitter account of the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal (with over 5 million followers) was hijacked and renamed “goblintown.wtf.” The attackers altered the bio and profile pictures and posted fraudulent tweets promising an airdrop of 10,000 “Goblins,” linking to a phishing site designed to drain victims’ cryptocurrency wallets. IPYS Venezuela issued an alert, and the newspaper’s technical team began the recovery process with Twitter.
Impact details
El Universal’s Twitter account was hacked and used to promote a fake NFT phishing website called “Goblintown/Goblintowm.” CryptoSlate reported that a user reported the theft of 10 NFTs; no internal data breach at El Universal has been reported.
Classification & severity
- Category
- Intrusions
- Subtype
- Unprivileged account compromise
- Confidence
- High
It has been confirmed that the publication’s Twitter account was compromised and subsequently used to spread an NFT-related scam and phishing scheme.
Severity assessment
Medium- Functional impact
- Minimal
- Information impact
- Integrity loss
- Affected scope
- Multiple users
- Critical service
- None
- Public confidence
- Limited
- Recoverability
- Regular
It has been confirmed that an official social media account was compromised and that followers were exposed to a scam; however, there has been no confirmation of an internal data breach or a service disruption.
Timeline
Attackers took control of El Universal's verified Twitter account and renamed it "goblintown.wtf," altering the bio and profile pictures.
Tweets are being posted from the hijacked account promising an airdrop of 10,000 "Goblins" and linking to a phishing site designed to drain cryptocurrency wallets.
IPYS Venezuela issues an alert; El Universal’s technical team confirms the hack and begins the verification and recovery process with Twitter.