The official account of Nasdaq on the X social media platform was briefly compromised with hackers using the attack to promote a fake meme coin known as STONKS.
In a familiar scam that we have seen before, the malicious actors then connected a scam affiliate account to the stock market index profile, resulting in an X repost to promote the supposed token.
The attack appeared to have the desired effect, with the fictitious STONKS rising fast to 80 million in market cap. What makes it even more deceitful is that a pre-existing meme coin with the same name launched on the same day on Solana, but that was the legitimate version, holding all of the IP rights.
The boom of the copycat version proved to be short-lived, with its value crashing just days later, as reported by the crypto tracking platform, DEXscreener.
🚨Just in: #Nasdaq's official X account was compromised to promote a fake #memecoin named $STONKS.#CoinPedia #CryptoNews #Blockchain #stonks pic.twitter.com/SL9YJFaHz1
— Coinpedia (@CoinpediaNews) January 23, 2025
High-profile hijack victim
Twelve months ago, hackers were known to be increasingly targeting prominent accounts on Elon Musk’s social platform to enable these links to crypto scams as well as dropping drainer links.
A crypto drainer is a form of malware that targets cryptocurrency wallets by tricking the victim into consenting to a malicious transaction.
Google subsidiary Mandiant, a cyber intelligence company bought for $5.4bn, was a high-profile hijack victim last January when it was used to distribute a fake airdrop which subsequently applied the drain.
On X, the fake STONKS post has been removed with the account suspended, while Nasdaq is yet to release a public comment on the incident.
Image credit: Via Midjourney
