Microsoft's X Account Hijacked by Fake Clippy Crypto Scammers
Microsoft's official X account, which has over 13 million followers, was hijacked on October 1 and briefly used to promote a fake Clippy-themed cryptocurrency. The company confirmed that its account had been compromised in a statement to The Verge.
The takeover occurred when the @Microsoft account began following a Clippy crypto account called @clippymsftcto and reposted one of its messages, replacing its profile picture with Clippy, the animated paperclip assistant Microsoft retired years ago. The posts were then taken down, and a strange apology appeared on the account roughly 30 minutes later before being deleted without explanation.
The brief takeover exposed millions of followers to the scheme before it was stopped. A second account involved in the incident kept pushing a so-called $Clippy token, telling followers its liquidity pool was paired with $MSFT. Microsoft quickly moved to distance itself from the fake token, releasing a statement that said the company does not support or endorse any cryptocurrency or crypto-related token.
The incident echoes the January 2024 takeover of the Securities and Exchange Commission's X account, which regulators later attributed to a SIM swap. Security researchers note that account takeovers increasingly rely on SIM swaps or compromised credentials rather than any exploit of the platform itself.