McDonald’s official Instagram page was briefly hacked by a crypto scammer who says they “rug pulled” $700,000 worth of Solana from unsuspecting fans.
Since the rise of crypto over the last few years, an increasing number of highly followed social media pages have been hacked by scam artists.
The latest to suffer from a crypto hack is one of the most iconic fast food restaurants – McDonald’s – and the restaurant briefly lost access to its Instagram page on August 21, 2024.
McDonald’s has since regained access to its page, but not without news of the hack making its way across social media.
Shared by Unusual Whales on X, the hacker briefly advertised a Grimace crypto coin that they used to allegedly scam unsuspecting fans out of $700,000.
McDonald’s Instagram bio was updated by the person behind the scheme. It read: “Sorry you have just been rug pulled by India_X_Kr3w thank you for the $700,000 in Solana.”
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The McDonald’s, $MCD, instagram was hacked, where it pumped and dumped a $SOL solana alt coin.The $MCD instagram description now reads “you have been rug pulled” pic.twitter.com/pYwGHHZ8zL
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) August 21, 2024
This is just the latest major account to be taken over by scammers. On August 19, 2024, tech YouTuber Linus Tech Tips had its main Twitter/X account hijacked.
Linus revealed how it happened in an episode of the WAN Show, explaining that they were the victim of an email scam. While at a pool party, the YouTuber received an email claiming that the account was accessed in Russia and quickly raced to lock it down.
The email was fake, however, and after Linus used a link to log into his account – the scammers were able to take over full access.
It’s unknown exactly how McDonald’s fell victim to the same fate, but it goes to show how convincing some email scams are and how even the slightest distraction can cause massive headaches.
Now that they have control of the account, the popular Big Mac restaurant can go back to advertising its YuGiOh x Hello Kitty Happy Meal collab and its super popular Collector’s cups.