Algorand Foundation CEO’s X Account Hacked

On January 26, the Twitter account of Staci Warden, the CEO of the Algorand Foundation, was hacked.

The breach was announced via an official post by the Algorand Foundation, cautioning the community against interacting with any links or responding to private messages from the compromised account to prevent potential asset theft.

Hacker Urges Community to Dump ALGO for ETH

The hacker, who took control of Warden’s account, posted a derogatory message aimed at the Algorand community and urged them to sell their ALGO tokens and buy Ethereum (ETH) instead. The attacker also promised to give away one Ethereum for every percentage that the price of the ALGO token loses during this week.

‼️ @StaciW_DC’s account has been compromised.

Please do not click on any links on her account or respond to DMs.

We are in the process of recovering it.

— Algorand Foundation (@AlgoFoundation) January 26, 2024

Data from CoinGecko shows that Algorand remains seemingly unaffected, with ALGO trading at $0.164, up by 2.1% in the last 24 hours at the time of writing.

The hacker didn’t stop there, though. They shared a satirical story about how Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, would take Algorand to “new heights.” According to the attacker, Sun needed “total control” over Algorand and the ability to mint any token back to True USD (TUSD).

Just when I thought it was all over for Algorand — my phone rang — it was his excellency. Justin told me that he would boost Algorand to new heights by launching TUSD (TRUE USD) and VRUSD (VERY REAL USD) on Algorand, and all I had to do was agree to give him total control over… pic.twitter.com/Rr9K28uGwh

— staci.algo (@StaciW_DC) January 26, 2024

The hacker wrote, “Of course, I accepted this offer immediately. Soon, Algorand will be pegged to VERY REAL USD, and a new era of digital commerce will commence.”

The attacker also used satire to suggest that Sun’s projects would be responsible for the subsequent “major financial collapse in crypto.”

In addition to these posts, the hacker shared music on the account, made changes to Warden’s profile bio, and spread unfounded allegations. They alleged that Warden had drained six figures from the community and gaslighted them into thinking it was a hack.

The attacker also claimed that Warden had already exited the Algorand Foundation and is now a “semi-professional pole dancer.”

Warden Faces Community Backlash

Amid this chaos, some community members seized the opportunity to criticize Warden. Crypto detective ZachXBT suggested that the hacker would make a “better CEO” for the Algorand Foundation.

Unpopular opinion: Staci hacker would make a better CEO for Algorand Foundation

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 26, 2024

A different X user suggested that Warden is eligible for an internship role at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, whose X account recently experienced a security breach.

Following the incident, the Algorand Foundation has notified the community that it is actively working to regain control of the CEO’s Twitter account.