The hacked Gate.io Twitter account appears to be promoting a bogus giveaway of 500,000 USDT, putting users at risk of losing funds.

A hacker of unknown origin has taken over the Twitter account of crypto exchange Gate.io, putting users of the 1 million-plus exchange at risk of wallet drain from the ongoing fraudulent 500,000 USDT giveaway.

The hacker replaced the website URL on the initial Gate.io exchange’s Twitter account to a fake one, gate.com (https://xn--gte-ipa.com/), posing as the exchange.

The fake website was seen promoting a bogus giveaway of 500,000 USDT, asking users to connect their wallets (such as metamask) to claim the rewards. Once a user goes big and connects his wallet to the scammer’s fake website, the hacker gains access to the existing funds in his wallet and eventually depletes his assets.

PeckShield, a noted Blockchain researcher, also confirmed this trick and warned users about the fake website.

Notably, Gate.io has now got its Twitter account back, as it appears that the original website is now back on the company page.

Hacking major Twitter accounts in the industry to scam fans or users is not a new thing. Last year, Blockchain.News reported that Graham Ivan Clark, the teenage hacker who took over popular Twitter accounts in 2020 and used them to scam Twitter users. BitcoinHe was found guilty in a Florida court.

Clark hacked into verified Twitter accounts belonging to prominent figures including US President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Uber, socialite Kim Kardashian and other personalities. She was then able to tweet messages asking followers to send Bitcoin.

While hacks like this may continue to emerge, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently warned that people should check the validity of any investment opportunity and be on the lookout for misspelled URLs as well as scams. domain names impersonating financial institutions, especially cryptocurrency exchanges.

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