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Mandiant, a Google-owned cybersecurity company, had its X account hijacked on January 3, and grappled to regain control of the social media account over several hours in a quite ironic incident.
An unknown scammer reportedly exploited the official Mandiant X account to spread a cryptocurrency-stealing link, designed to automatically drain crypto wallets.
Mandiant acknowledged the incident in a statement and announced efforts to regain control of the account, which was later done successfully.
Cybersecurity company faces cybersecurity blip
Initially posing as Phantom, a crypto and NFT wallet provider, the hacked account lured users to a scam website pretending to offer 250,000 eligible accounts an award of tokens.
Mandiant’s staff reportedly engaged in a back-and-forth struggle over several hours to remove scam posts, only for them to reappear.
The attacker also posted jovial threats on the account, targeted at the company’s social media team, including a meme with the comment “change password please” and another reading “check bookmarks when you get account back.”
Mandiant, known for helping clients to investigate and recover from significant network breaches, was acquired by Google in 2022 for $5.4 billion. The company’s reputation will undoubtedly take a hit from this short-lived but serious event.
Given the lack of a blue or gold checkmark, Google isn’t paying for any verification status on the Mandiant account like it does on some other Google accounts on X. It’s unclear how Mandiant’s social media workers regained control of the account, or whether subscribing to a paid account might have expedited the account recovery or prevented it altogether.
A Mandiant spokesperson told TechRadar Pro: “We are aware of the incident impacting the Mandiant X account. We’ve since regained control over the account and are currently working on restoring it.”
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