a16z X Account Compromised by Hackers Linking to Suspicious Airdrop

The social media account of a venture capitalist firm that manages tens of billions of dollars worth of assets has been hacked by bad actors linking to a suspicious crypto airdrop.

In a new thread on the social media platform X, prominent tech venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) says that its X account briefly suffered a security breach and was taken over to promote a fake digital asset.

“Earlier today, our X account was briefly compromised. During that time, the account promoted a token and other fake content – none of which originated from a16z. Apologies for any confusion caused by the clowns who temporarily took over our account.”

Andreesen Horowitz’s X account, which has 851,000 followers, was used to promote a new, nonexistent Solana (SOL)-based token that was said to be created by the firm.

Earlier this year, in February, on-chain analyst Colin Wu noted that the X account of one of the founders of a16z was hacked and also used to promote a fake project.

“Earlier, the X account of a16z founder Shaw was hacked and a fake Eliza scam link was released. Shaw said he didn’t know how the hacker carried out the attack. He has two-factor authentication, a password manager, and a strong password. This attack was carefully planned and targeted. He apologized to all those who lost money.”