Cryptocurrency portfolio tracker Blockfolio became the victim of a massive hack on Monday night, with hackers going on N-word rant and sending push notifications to users announcing the "closure of all services to black people and n*****s". Hackers also sent a series of 'child porn' links to the users during the large hack.
Screenshots of messages containing racial slurs, abuses and others that read 'best child porn is available here' were shared on social media which immediately went viral. Following the hack, Blockfolio was forced to issue an apology to its users mentioning that the unexpected messages were a result of a massive hack of the news and signal feed on the cryptocurrency app.
Embarrassing Posts
Most of the messages sent out to users were offensive racist slurs, including using the N-word. The hackers also renamed several coins racist titles. The messages were delivered via a series of push notifications and appeared to come from Jason Hamlin, a member of the app's marketing team. One message read: "Hello, we are sad to announce we closure of our services to all black people and n****** with immediate loss of all funds."
However, it is still unclear how many customers received the messages. Besides, a series of links for child porn were also sent to the customers. The hack was first pointed out by some user who took to Twitter to share the messages that they started receiving. That said, Blockfolio was swift in taking action. Since the hack, it has removed all the messages and revoked access to the notification system Signal for the compromised account.
Funds Not Affected
Blockfolio on Tuesday blamed the hack and the resultant messages sent to users on a competitor. However, it didn't name the competitor. The FTX-owned app said that the breach had been in the news and signal feeds only, while its other services remained intact.
"We are incredibly sorry about the offensive messages posted today," the company said in a statement posted to Twitter in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The app also confirmed that no funds/etc were affected and the breach did not interact with any trading features. "This compromise impacted token tracking listings and limited areas of communications but is separate from Blockfolio/FTX trading accounts," FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted.
The Blockfolio team has also said that users with trading enabled have been issued $10 in free credit following this. New customers who join to trade this week will also receive the credit, up to a limit of 1 million customers.
Blockfolio appeared to be down after the posts were shared but the tracking parts of the app were quickly brought back online.
