Bitget CEO Gracy Chen lost $80,000 in a social engineering attack where Lazarus Group impersonators compromised a media outlet's Twitter, then posed as journalists via Telegram and Zoom.
Regulation & Gov ·
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen lost $80,000 through a social engineering attack orchestrated by individuals posing as members of the Lazarus Group. The scheme began when attackers compromised the Twitter account of a major crypto media outlet, then used that foothold to impersonate a journalist and initiate contact with Chen. Over time, the attackers communicated with her assistant and PR team via Telegram, steadily establishing perceived legitimacy through the hijacked media channel.
The attackers executed the final phase of the scheme via a Zoom call framed as a press interview, at which point the financial loss occurred. The attack demonstrates how credential harvesting and identity spoofing—layered across multiple communication platforms and leveraging compromised institutional accounts—can bypass the trust signals that individuals and their teams rely on to vet external contacts in the crypto sector.
It remains unclear what specific actions during the Zoom session led to the $80,000 loss, whether funds were transferred directly or through a different mechanism, or what additional security measures Chen or Bitget have since implemented to prevent similar attacks.