On August 21, hackers hacked McDonald’s official Instagram page and executed a scam that resulted in over $700,000 in stolen Solana. They used the popular social media account to promote a fraudulent memecoin named “Grimace,” inspired by McDonald’s purple mascot.
The attack started with McDonald’s Instagram account being seized and used to spread information on the fake token called GRIMACE. Screenshots posted on X revealed that the hackers were able to create multiple posts that spammed the public claiming that Grimace was an official project by McDonald’s on the Solana blockchain. Such posts prompted 5.1 million McDonalds’ followers to invest in the token.
GRIMACE Token Price Surge Due to McDonald’s Instagram Hack
The promotion was highly effective as it caused GRIMACE’s market capitalization to rise to $25 million within 30 minutes. The token price rose to $0.025 for some time because of the buying pressure created by the scam. The developer who possesses 75% of the tokens dumped the token through one hundred different wallets, a known method in the cryptocurrency world called rug pull, where the developer steals investors’ money.
The act of rug pull where the fraudsters develop a token and then run off with the investment money is not unique to the crypto market. In the first half of this year, scammers targeted the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and stole around 1.7 million dollars.
After the scam, the hacker modified the Instagram bio and added the amount he stole, where the bio changed to India_X_Kr3w with an Indian flag emoji. This bio was eventually deleted, as well as any content connected to the scam.
McDonald’s has accepted its faults regarding this issue of security and extended an apology to the community. The company has stated that it has taken necessary measures to ensure that such circumstances do not happen again in the future. Furthermore, the marketing director of McDonalds France, Guillaume Huin was also among the victims of the hack.
