Hackers promote XRP by hacking Socials of Media House

Watcher Guru, a well-known crypto and finance media platform, announced on X that its account was hacked to spread misleading information about XRP. The hacker falsely claimed that SWIFT was nearing an agreement with Ripple to use XRP for cross-border payments, with billions of XRP locked in escrow and liquidity increasing. The fraudulent post has since been deleted.

Following the incident, Watcher Guru issued a statement warning its followers: “WARNING: Our X account has been hacked, and the previous post (now deleted) was posted by a hacker. We have 2FA enabled and have taken extreme measures to avoid hacks. We are looking into this and will provide an update when we have more details. We are working to get in touch with X support.”

The attack raised concerns about broader security vulnerabilities. A user questioned whether Watcher Guru’s Facebook account had also been compromised, to which the platform responded, clarifying that their Facebook bot had automatically reposted the fraudulent content.

Watcher Guru hasn’t pinpointed how the hack happened or where it came from yet. They’ve cleaned up all the fake posts and locked down their account. They pointed out that their breach looks a lot like one that hit crypto influencer @tier10k not long ago. Even with two-factor authentication on, no linked apps, and no API tokens in play, their account still got compromised.

They also explained that their auto-reposting setup helped spread a bogus XRP post far and wide. The bot they use is set to grab any “JUST IN” or “BREAKING” news from X and push it out to places like Telegram, Facebook, and Discord automatically. This allowed the hacker’s message to reach a wider audience before it was taken down.

The breach happened in the early hours of March 21, around 2:05 AM UTC. Watcher Guru’s team spotted the unauthorized post almost immediately and removed it within minutes. As a precaution, they logged out of all devices and reset their password. At first, they didn’t think much of it since the post contained an official-looking link. However, they later reached out to X’s head of cybersecurity, @cstanley, for clarification but didn’t receive a response.

As things played out, someone on Twitter flagged an odd twist—SWIFT happened to drop a big announcement about rolling out smooth crypto payments on the very same day. It got people wondering if Watcher Guru might’ve slipped up and spilled some insider info before it was supposed to go live, then tried to brush it off by saying their account got hacked. 

There’s nothing solid to prove this hunch, but the way the timing lined up has folks quietly buzzing that the “hack” could’ve been a handy excuse to dodge an oops moment.