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Government minister Lucy Powell’s X account has been hacked to promote a scam “House of Commons” cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n
A string of now deleted posts on the House of Commons leader’s account described the “$HCC” coin as “a community-driven digital currency bringing people’s power to the blockchain”. <\/p>\n
The MP’s office confirmed her account was hacked on Tuesday morning and said “steps were taken quickly to secure the account and remove misleading posts”.<\/p>\n
Other public figures with a large number of followers who have been targeted in a similar way by online hackers recently include BBC journalist Nick Robinson.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Some of the posts from Powell’s account, which is verified by the platform and mentions her cabinet position in the bio, included an image of the House of Commons logo.<\/p>\n
The MP for Manchester Central, who has nearly 70,000 followers on X, has been leader of the House of Commons since Labour won power last summer. <\/p>\n
The role is responsible for planning and supervising the government’s legislative programme, while also upholding the rights of backbench MPs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Taking over X accounts to advertise scam crypto coins is a common method used by cyber criminals.<\/p>\n
Fraudsters often take over accounts using phishing emails – scam emails containing links to websites that either access systems or trick users into sharing their passwords. <\/p>\n
Passwords can also be obtained using leaked information from data breaches. <\/p>\n
At that point cyber criminals take over the account and plan their posts around hastily spun up crypto coins that can only take a couple of hours to create and launch.<\/p>\n
They hope that high-profile and trusted accounts might encourage people to buy some of the otherwise worthless coins so that they can make some money before it all get blocked and stopped.<\/p>\n
Luke Nolan, a senior research associate at CoinShares, an asset management company specialising in digital assets, said the hack of Powell’s account was an example of “pump and dump”. <\/p>\n
This is when the people who created the cryptocoin inflate its value, get others to invest, and then sell their majority share to get profit, but leave the coin worthless.<\/p>\n
Mr Nolan said there had only been 34 transactions on the coin, which would have led to a profit of about \u00a3225.<\/p>\n
A House of Commons spokesman said: “UK Parliament takes cyber security extremely seriously. <\/p>\n
“We provide advice to users – including Members – to make them aware of the risks and how to manage their digital safety; however, we do not comment on specific details of our cyber security policies.”<\/p>\n
Action Fraud said there was a rise in social and email accounts being hacked in 2024, with 35,343 reports. <\/p>\n
It advises setting up 2-step verification for accounts and using a strong, unique password of three random words. <\/p>\n
Earlier this year Robinson, who presents BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, said his X account was hacked after he clicked on an email he wrongly believed was sent to him by the social media platform. <\/p>\n
Post on his account claimed he was launching a cryptocurrency called “$Today”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n