Attacker Posts Fake XRP Giveaway on PwC Venezuela Twitter Account

An attacker breached the Twitter account of big-four accounting firm PwC Venezuela and was posting free XRP giveaway scams.

In the first tweet, posted at 2:13 AM UTC, the hacker tweeted three words, “Problem, reaction, solution #XRP,” with a picture of Ripple Labs’ CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Eight similar tweets soon followed. It seemed that PwC Venezuela had taken down the tweets as of press time.

Ripple Labs has so far not responded to the fraudulent tweets.

New Twitter feature could be used for scams, experts warn

One of the ways attackers lure victims through phishing attacks is by replacing a character in a genuine URL with a Unicode character that looks very similar.

Social media company Twitter announced earlier this month that it would be testing a new feature to allow users to edit tweets for a limited time after posting them, raising questions about whether this would encourage malicious behavior like the one seen on PwC Venezuela’s account.

Specifically, one expert argued that if a tweet went viral, the person who tweeted could modify it to a phishing link, steal the victim’s personal information, or direct them to a scam. Earlier this month, the United States Federal Trade Commission reported that scammers siphoned $1 billion from crypto holders this year, with Twitter being the platform of choice to lure victims.

Twitter allayed fears by assuring the public that the feature has been rolled out to a small group where the new features could be tested and feedback incorporated to minimize misuse.

Ripple Labs faces setback as new political headwinds blow in Colombia

Thus far, Ripple Labs has faced a setback in its quest to help war-torn Colombia reallocate land to indigenous folk after a decades-long civil war resulting in unequal land distribution.

Just two weeks before newly-elected President Gustavo Petro took office, the Colombian Ministry of Technology and Communications said it would start recording land titles on the XRP blockchain using software created by Peersyst.

But a new political ideology has quashed that idea indefinitely, as one key minister said that digitizing land titles were not part of the priorities of the Lands Agency and the Strategic Plan for Information Technologies.

Despite continuing discussions between Ripple, Peersyst, and the government, it seems the project is destined for file thirteen. So far, only one title deed has been added to the XRP ledger, a blow to Ripple, whose partnership with the public sector could have boosted its public profile as it faces a drawn-out battle with the SEC over XRP’s status as a security.

In March 2022, Ripple Labs launched a $250 million NFT creator fund in partnership with NFT marketplaces and creative agencies to create low-cost, carbon-friendly, cross-chain NFTs.