TRON Blames Social Engineering Attack To Hacked X Account

TRON’s official X account was compromised on May 2, and the team has now confirmed that the attack was due to a social engineering attack. The hackers utilized the account to advertise a contract address and allegedly sent direct messages to users and followed suspicious accounts before TRON took back control.

As reported by TRON DAO, any direct message posted by its X account on May 2 must be disregarded. Users were also instructed to remove any direct message from the same day since this was included in the hacker’s plan to distribute malicious information and engage with unsuspecting users.

Attack Linked To Team Member’s Compromised Account

TRON DAO announced that the attack began with one of its team members becoming a victim of social engineering hack. After the hackers gained access to the team member’s account, they were then able to take control of the blockchain’s master X account. Even after the recovery of access by TRON, the attackers kept contacting others using the hijacked personal account.

We’re aware that our X account was compromised from 9:25 AM PST on May 2, 2025. During this time, an unauthorized party published a post containing a contract address (CA), sent direct messages (DMs), and followed various accounts unknown to us.

Please be reminded: TRON DAO will…

— TRON DAO (@trondao) May 3, 2025

TRON reported that it is currently examining the incident and has identified several X and Telegram addresses of the hackers. The team confirmed that law enforcement officials have been contacted and are now engaged with the case.

Dispute Between Sun And OKX Over Freeze Request

TRON founder Justin Sun requested that OKX freeze a wallet that was associated with the hack. In a deleted tweet, Sun stated that funds stolen in the hack had been transferred to the exchange and alleged that law enforcement had already sent a freeze notice to OKX’s official channel.

Dear Mr H.E. Justin Sun, we are still waiting for enforcement request document. Thanks for deleting all confusing public communications! https://t.co/JfcFwVKbxT

— Star (@star_okx) May 3, 2025

But OKX CEO Star Xu reacted in public, dismissing that the exchange had received any formal request. He claimed that the legal team of the company scanned all post-mail, including spam folders, and could not find anything.

Xu then challenged Sun to produce evidence by posting a screenshot of the request. This public exchange might have compelled Sun to delete his initial post.

In spite of the incident, TRON has been busy on the development front. The network recently rolled out a new version of its Kant mainnet upgrade. The update features a redesign of its contract event system and enhanced API and node performance. These improvements are anticipated to enhance the way the blockchain interacts with Ethereum and make it more secure and efficient in the background.

Though these changes likely won’t go unnoticed by general users, TRON explained that they’re key to long-term development. They said their aim is to enable larger-sized operations and the network to become more robust as a settlement framework.

Featured image from Advance Innovations, chart from TradingView