South African Parliament’s Social Media Accounts Hacked to Promote Fake Crypto

Hackers recently breached the South African Parliament’s social media accounts, including X, Facebook, and Youtube, to promote a fake cryptocurrency named after President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Fake Token Created 24 Hours Before Breach

On March 15, the hacked social media accounts of the South African parliament promoted a fake Solana-based cryptocurrency bearing the surname of the country’s leader, Cyril Ramaphosa. The token had been created some 24 hours before the breach that saw cybercriminals seize control of the parliament’s X, Facebook, and Youtube accounts.

An analysis of the breach reportedly showed the hackers created the Ramaphosa token on the Solana-based memecoin creating platform Pump.fun. A spokesperson for the legislative body, Moloto Mothapo, confirmed the breach, which he said impacted one of its 25 Youtube streaming channels.

“Parliament has identified a security breach affecting one of its 25 Youtube streaming services (channels), which is integrated with official social media accounts. This breach resulted in the unauthorized upload of content not aligned with the work of the Institution,” Mothapo said.

The spokesperson added that the parliament’s digital team has since terminated the compromised stream and an investigation is underway to determine the source of the breach. Besides the Ramaphosa token, the cybercriminals are said to have created ParliamentofRSA (RSATOKEN).

The South African parliament is the latest high-profile African institution or individual to be attacked by hackers who seem to target social media accounts with sizable followings. In February, the Kenyan law enforcement agency, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), confirmed that cybercriminals had used its compromised accounts to promote a fake cryptocurrency.

Before that, Tanzanian billionaire Mohammed Dewji revealed that his X account was breached by hackers. Although Dewji did eventually regain control of the account, it was only after hackers had fleeced unsuspecting users of more than $1.4 million. Although no figure on the amount of funds stolen in South African parliament breach was revealed, a Daily Maverick report suggested that hackers had made efforts to cash out the stolen funds.

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