South African Cricket Board Twitter account hacked

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The South African Cricket Board (CSA) twitter account suffered an attack earlier this week. According to reports, unknown persons hacked the account to run a bitcoin-related scam.

Hackers used their gained access to post a tweet, which has since been deleted. It stated that South African Cricket Board had teamed up with Luno to run a “Bitcoin Lottery.”

The hack happened at around 4.20 AM IST on Monday. The tweet stated:

“@OfficialCSA is partnering with @lunomoney for the first South African Bitcoin Lottery. Simply send 0.01 BTC to 13My18T92DCzGdrtiCgRuS32T6rFLjnG56, and your BTC Wallet Address will be entered into a BTC Lottery for 20BTC (That’s Over R1Mil). Lottery closes at 15 Jan @ 10 PM.”

There were more related tweets posted on the account up until 11.23 AM IST, when Cricket South Africa resolved the matter and regained access to the account. CSA sent a tweet to its followers apologizing for the incidence, and especially to those affected by the hack. They also stated that they were ready to go on with upcoming events as promised.

Luno also came out the next morning to distance themselves from the tweets. They confirmed that there was no such partnerships between the companies.

Reportedly, the World cricket body, ICC had acknowledged the hack and asked users not to engage with the Twitter handle until the problem has been fixed. The incorrect tweets were deleted. Users have been asked not to click on any links on the account. ICC claimed that their team in South Africa is working to resolve the matter.

Despite the hack, South African’s cricket team is set to play against Pakistan in the third test.

Last year, hackers stomped the crypto space by targeting social accounts of crypto users. There were reports of various twitter accounts being hacked to support fraudulent activities. In November 2018, Target and Google’s Official accounts were compromised to promote a scam that offered free bitcoin to users. Reportedly, hackers posted ads that claimed Google was offering “10,000 Bitcoins to all community” while another on Target’s accounts claimed they were offering “5,000 Bitcoin to all community.” The tweet got 106 re-tweets, 714 likes and 204 comments before it was taken down.