ICANN Twitter account hacked due to phishing

Recently, the Twitter account of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was hacked and turned into a promotional platform for cryptocurrency scams, which attracted attention.

On the evening of February 11, ICANN's Twitter account posted an unusual tweet at around 02:00 UTC time, promoting a memecoin called $DNS, saying it would redefine digital ownership and integrate domain name governance with Web3 culture. The dnscoin.org website linked to the tweet also cooperated in the promotion, but the domain name was subsequently completely deleted.

At the time of the incident, the ICANN California team was preparing to go off work, but fortunately ICANN quickly regained control of the account. However, according to a screenshot taken by domain name lawyer John Berryhill, at least a few thousand of his 104,000 followers viewed the fraudulent tweet. This incident is suspected to be a cryptocurrency price-raising scam or a "carpet-style tug-of-war", and some people may have been harmed by it.

ICANN stated on its homepage that this was a phishing attack. After discovering the account was attacked on February 11, it is investigating the cause and resolving it. ICANN said that all platforms use multi-factor authentication (MFA) and other accounts were not affected. Despite the MFA protection, hackers were still able to succeed because they needed to use physical devices and limited-time one-time passwords to log in, which was complicated.

As a key Internet management agency, ICANN's security reputation was damaged by this incident, and it also sounded the alarm for network security. At a time when fraud methods are constantly being updated, all institutions and individuals need to improve their security awareness and protection capabilities. ICANN is still investigating, and subsequent progress is attracting much attention.

Information source: domainincite