Tron DAO Confirms Social Engineering Attack Behind Account Breach
Tron DAO has confirmed that its official X account was compromised on May 2 in a social engineering attack that led to $45,000 being fraudulently solicited from users. According to the Tron public relations team, the attacker posted a fake contract address and directly messaged users, offering promotional advertising in exchange for payments.
“Our security team quickly identified the intrusion and cut off access to the hacker,” Tron said. “We urge the community to stay alert — we will never request payments via DMs or posts.”
The team believes the hack originated from a team member being targeted and tricked into compromising their account credentials. Even after Tron regained control of the account, the attacker continued to impersonate the team and attempt to solicit payments.
Tron DAO stated they are still investigating the breach and are in touch with law enforcement. Founder Justin Sun publicly accused crypto exchange OKX of not freezing funds linked to the hack, though OKX CEO Star Xu denied the claim, prompting Sun to delete his original post.
Tron also acknowledged potential similarities between their breach and the May 3 takeover of the New York Post’s X account, although they emphasized that no definitive connection has been confirmed.
Curve Finance Also Falls Victim to Account Takeover
On May 5, decentralized finance protocol Curve Finance became the latest victim of a social media hack. The attacker used Curve’s official X account to share a fraudulent link to a supposed CRV token airdrop with a fake week-long registration period.
The post was quickly deleted, but not before raising concerns within the crypto community. Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov confirmed that an unauthorized party had silently gained control of their X account. He added that no other associated accounts appear to have been affected.
Growing Wave of Crypto-Related Social Media Hacks
These incidents underscore a rising trend of social media account takeovers in the crypto space. High-profile targets continue to fall victim to phishing and social engineering attacks, causing both financial and reputational damage.
As crypto firms deal with increasingly sophisticated online threats, users are urged to verify all links and messages — especially those involving token sales or promotions — before engaging.
