On Tuesday, the X account of the president of Paraguay posted an announcement that the country accepted Bitcoin (BTC) as a legal currency. Only, it was a false statement, following a hack. What do we know about the incident?
No, Paraguay does not adopt Bitcoin as a legal currency
From time to time, the hack of an X account of a personality or a government agency marks the crypto ecosystem with a false ad. For example, one of these most striking failures was that of the pseudo-validation ETF Bitcoin Spot on January 9, 2024, after an attack by SIM SWAP of the X account of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 24 hours before real approval.
Monday, It was Santiago Peña, the president of Paraguay, who saw his account x to be compromised to make an announcement according to which the country adopted Bitcoin (BTC) as a legal currency. Since then, the tweet has of course been deleted:
Fraudulent tweet announcing the alleged adoption of Bitcoin as legal currency in Paraguay
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In addition to the tweet, A false statement went so far as to make believe in a supposed national reserve of Bitcoins::
To ensure the successful and stable launch of this initiative, the government has secured a Bitcoin reserve worth $ 5 million, which will be kept in our national treasure. This reserve will serve as a financial stamp and this shows our commitment to this economic policy turned towards the future.
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As often, the motivations of such a hack were to attract gullible investors through a phishing attempt. Here, we can see the sharing of a Bitcoin address, suggesting the failure of the operation, since it contains only $ 4.21 BTC, for a total of 6 transactions, the last having taken place on May 18:
Bitcoin address shared by the hacker
Regarding government's responsiveness, the Paraguay presidency account published a statement 2 h 13 after the incident to inform the situation, explaining an in progress collaboration with the social network X and the anti-cybercidential response center (CERT-PY) .
Later in the evening, President Santiago Peña thanked the various stakeholders in the management of this incident:
I thank the CERT-PY and X teams for their quick and professional response to the security incident that occurred on my official X account. Cybersecurity is essential, and these events show us that we must all contribute to the construction of a safe, reliable and resilient digital ecosystem.
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For the time being, the origin of the fault that led to this unauthorized publication has not been disclosed, but this recalls the vigilance which must be shown in terms of cryptocurrencies. If the attempt seemed obvious in this specific case, given the fact that it is very unlikely that a government really asks you to send funds to an address as it was here, some scams are sometimes more elaborate and can give something to doubt.
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Sources: X, Mempool
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Since 2021, I have devoted my free time to seriously train myself on cryptocurrencies in order to acquire maximum knowledge and credibility. I often have the opportunity to carry out interviews with influential personalities from the blockchain industry. I also conduct in -depth analyzes on web3 themes to offer exclusive content to cryptoast readers.
Vincent Mayor
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