Reports indicate that hackers have taken control of the verified X (formerly Twitter) account of the (New York Post) and are sending false interview invitations and phishing attacks targeting members of the cryptocurrency community.
Multiple users reported receiving suspicious direct messages from the account, inviting them to appear on a podcast and follow up via Telegram, a platform commonly used in cryptocurrency scams.
Luring victims with fake interviews
The scam first came to light on May 3, when Kerberus CEO Alex Katz shared a screenshot of a direct message that appeared to come from journalist Paul Sperry, sent from his official account @nypost. The message invited users to participate in a podcast interview.
Cybersecurity expert and NFT collector 'Drew' pointed out a key difference between this attack and previous hacks: the attackers did not publicly share malicious links or wallet addresses but sent direct messages and prevented recipients from replying. This strategy may have helped delay the (New York Post) team's discovery of the breach.
Zoom has now become a new vehicle for cryptocurrency scams
Other figures in the cryptocurrency space, including Donny Clutterbuck from the NFT Ordinals project Fomojis, indicated that they also received contact. He hinted that this scam may involve a Zoom vulnerability—enabling audio during a video call could inadvertently grant attackers network access.
Zoom has become an increasingly common tool for cryptocurrency scams. In April of this year, Emblem Vault CEO Jake Gallen lost $100,000 in cryptocurrency assets during a meeting arranged via Zoom and issued a warning to users. Reportedly, the attackers installed malware during the meeting that stole his wallet.
Similar to recent violations by other social media platforms
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT noted that this incident is very similar to a recent hack of The Defiant's X account, where the attackers also sent direct messages to cryptocurrency users as part of a broader phishing campaign.
So far, the New York Post and journalist Paul Sperry have not made any statements regarding this breach, and there are no warnings posted on their X profile.
This is not the first time the (New York Post) X account has been compromised. In 2022, an insider used the account to post offensive false headlines.
