TRON DAO’s official X account was hacked through a social engineering attack targeting a TRON team member. The intruder caused havoc by sharing a crypto address, using DM to chat with people, and following other accounts. TRON DAO regained control of their account but noticed that the intruder continued to post suspicious offers for some time after.
TRON announced the event, informing the public about what had happened and letting them know about some security concerns. TRON said an unauthorised individual compromised the TRON DAO account and published fraudulent messages. TRON reminded the public that the organisation would never share wallet addresses or make unsolicited direct messages. TRON didn’t go into too much detail about how the hacker breached the account, but did mention that a team member was targeted through a social engineering attack. For some reason, the attacker was able to send payment requests even after TRON DAO regained control of their account. Law enforcement is investigating the incident. TRON also mentioned a few accounts associated with the hacker. TRON reminded users to disregard any direct messages from TRON DAO at this time.
Justin Sun, founder of TRON, noticed that the hacker transferred funds from the wallet address to the OKX exchange. Sun asked OKX to freeze the account so that the funds could be stopped before disappearing for good. Star Xu, OKX CEO, assured Sun that the funds would be temporarily frozen until the matter could be resolved. Xu further said that OKX has a Law Enforcement Cooperation policy, and that Sun should provide relevant evidence, using a link that Xu provided. TRON DAO would be able to upload supporting evidence, such as screenshots or transaction records, so that law enforcement could track down the hacker. However, Xu pointed out that more evidence would need to be provided if the freeze were to be extended, because the exchange has policies to protect customers.
TRON, besides this recent incident, has had a lot of positive news, such as the latest release of the Kant mainnet upgrade, which includes greater Ethereum compatibility and more security features. TRON announced the upgrade as a major improvement to the underlying structures of the code, making the token more efficient. Upgrades include API performance, node improvements, and optimisation of the contract system.
Sun assured the network that law enforcement was looking into the case and that TRON was providing many details to help apprehend the scammers and retrieve the funds. Sun said that the scammer enticed users to send funds for a fraudulent business offer. Sun addressed the scammer directly and said that if the funds were returned that they would be given back to the community. The scammer may be trying to transfer the funds quickly so that they can be disguised. However, this scammer allegedly moved the funds to a centralised exchange. This seems like a strange move for a scammer because the funds could easily be frozen by OKX. Another possibility could be that the scammer promoted a third-party wallet address, and the primary user is unaware of the social engineering attack.
