Imran Khan, former prime minister of Pakistan and current chairman of one of the country’s largest political parties, has confirmed that his Instagram account was compromised and hackers used it to promote a cryptocurrency gift scam used it to promote a cryptocurrency giveaway scam.
Imran Khan’s Instagram account was hacked and used to promote a cryptocurrency scam
Imran Khan, former prime minister of Pakistan and current chairman of one of the country’s largest political parties, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), reportedly confirmed that his Instagram account was hacked on Monday.
He told Dawn Publications that with the help of Facebook and Instagram owner Meta, his account was quickly recovered. He explained that he himself monitored the account, which has 7.4 million followers, and noted that hackers posted cryptocurrency links and screenshots of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweets on the account.
The cryptocurrency link posted on the politician’s account leads to a crypto gift site featuring Musk and his company Spacex. Scammer claims to be giving away Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Litecoin (LTC).
Cryptocurrency giveaway scams are very common on popular social media platforms like Youtube and Twitter. Many of them feature celebrities and companies such as Musk, Tesla, Spacex, Apple, Tim cook, Steve Wozniak, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates. They sometimes feature crypto company executives, such as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
In July 2020, Wozniak sued Youtube and Google for using his image and name to promote a bitcoin giveaway scam. However, he subsequently lost the lawsuit.” Youtube and its parent company, Google LLC, are protected by federal law that protects Internet platforms from liability for content posted by users,” the judge in the case ruled.
In July, the official Youtube and Twitter accounts of the British Army were compromised and hackers used them to promote a crypto giveaway scam as well.
In an effort to combat fraud, several crypto companies, including Binance and Circle, launched a crypto scam reporting platform in May to allow “anyone in the crypto economy to alert others when they encounter fraud, hacking, or other fraudulent activity” .
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