As ESPN’s Major League Baseball reporter, Jeff Passan, called the “biggest news day” of his life, scammers took over his Twitter account to promote a giveaway for non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
With the MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) locked in a prolonged deadlock over a labor agreement that caused games to be canceled, Passan had just broken the news of a major agreement between the two sides regarding the international draft.
hey remember that time i got hacked on the biggest news day of my life
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 10, 2022
However, with his eyes on Passan’s next one, his account suddenly started promoting giveaways from the NFT project Skulltoons. His username also changed to “Jeff.eth”, while his profile picture featured NFT artwork and her bio read: “NFT Enthusiast, MLB Insider, Father, Husband, @skulltoonsNFT Moderator, @Azukizen, @thugbirdz.”
The tweets (which have since been deleted and rescued via screenshots) indicated that Passan had teamed up with Skulltoons to give away 20 pre-sale slots for an upcoming March 20th collection. And of course, people had to click on a nefarious-looking link for a chance to win.
Oh no pic.twitter.com/KpkQl1kbiG
— Alex McDaniel (@AlexMcDaniel) March 10, 2022
After news of the hack began to circulate online, the team behind Skulltoons distanced themselves from the hacker’s posts and warned the community to beware of scams:
“It appears that Jeff Passan was hacked by someone trying to scam our community… We are not affiliated with Jeff in any capacity. We hope he can get his Twitter back as soon as possible.”
Looks like jeffpassan got hacked by someone trying to scam our community as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that’ll be a homerun so that’ll make it a 4-0 ballgame
— Shortest Stop (@ShortestStop) March 10, 2022
The hack didn’t last long, as ESPN reportedly rushed to recover Passan’s account within two hours. To announce his return, Passan changed the background of his Twitter account to a white image that simply read “I’m back”, in reference to the famous phrase of the NBA icon Michael Jordan when he came out of retirement to play for the second time with the Chicago Bulls.
Hackers often try to hijack popular social media accounts in an attempt to trick followers into thinking they’re seeing legitimate promotions from people they support. Cointelegraph reported in late January that dozens of YouTube accounts including BitBoy Crypto, Altcoin Buzz, Box Mining, Floyd Mayweather, Ivan on Tech, and The Moon were hacked to promote cryptocurrency scams.
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