On January 25, 2026, Eastern Standard Time, the social media account of Kenneth Shen (X account @shenhaichen), co-founder of Scroll, was hacked. The attacker quickly impersonated an official identity, sending phishing direct messages containing malicious links to followers and related users. After the incident was exposed, Scroll officially issued an urgent security warning, emphasizing that the team was actively working to recover the account and repeatedly reminding users not to click on any links sent from that account or interact with related direct messages. Surrounding this incident, a more pressing question emerged: why have incidents of social account breaches among industry executives and crypto KOLs become increasingly frequent in recent years, and what risks do ordinary users face when these "centralized trust nodes" are compromised?
Executive Account Breach: A Chain Reaction Triggered by a Single Direct Message
● Amplified Phishing Pathways: In this incident, after the attacker hijacked Kenneth Shen's X account, they did not simply post a single scam tweet but leveraged the identity tags of "co-founder" and "core official figure of the project" to send malicious links and guiding scripts to users one-on-one via direct messages. For many users accustomed to receiving "beta testing benefits" and "whitelist confirmations" in direct messages, this close contact is highly misleading. Once they click into the phishing page and complete authorization or signing, wallet assets and personal privacy can be easily emptied within seconds.
● Official Urgent Disavowal: In response to the account theft, the official Scroll account promptly issued a statement, clearly stating that the team was actively working to recover Kenneth Shen's account while using very direct language to remind the community: "Do not interact with any links or direct messages sent from this account." This wording effectively acknowledges that the attacker would extensively use the account to reach users, and the official can only expand the coverage of warning messages to try to cut off the trust chain before fraud occurs, reducing the likelihood of users getting involved.
● Trust Weaponized: In the crypto world, accounts of founders, executives, and top KOLs often carry "high trust" and "high information value." Many users regard them as the primary source of information on project progress, event benefits, and shifts in trends. Attackers precisely exploit this centrally cultivated trust, transforming accounts that should provide a sense of security into high-conversion scam entry points. A direct message that appears "official" or "beneficial," under the influence of trust filters, can easily bypass users' basic vigilance.
From X to On-Chain: Crypto KOLs Become the New Frontline of Attacks
● Incidents Are Not Isolated: Reviewing the public sentiment in the industry over the past few years, the theft of social accounts belonging to project parties and founders is not uncommon. From leading public chain teams to popular DeFi protocols and NFT communities, cases of founders or official accounts being hacked and then issuing "fake announcements" or "fake airdrops" have repeatedly emerged. They often share several commonalities: accounts with significant influence, a fan base that highly overlaps with potential victims, and frequent posting of asset-related information, making any changes easily interpreted as "new opportunities."
● Weaknesses in Technical Teams: Even a team like Scroll, known for its technical strength, cannot completely bypass the inherent security weaknesses of social platforms—the login environment of X accounts, device security, two-factor authentication settings, and third-party tool authorizations are all traditional information security issues that are not directly supported by on-chain technology stacks. In other words, no matter how strong the zero-knowledge proofs or how complex the Rollup architecture, they cannot replace the enforcement of personal account security strategies by team members.
● Amplifying Effects of Chain Scams: Once a crypto KOL or core project account is compromised, attacks rarely stop at a single "point scam link." Attackers often create a series of "fake airdrop announcements," "fake partnership declarations," and "fake emergency subsidy activities," supplemented by countdowns, limits, and fabricated interaction data, inducing users to complete on-chain authorizations, cross-chain, or transfer operations in a very short time. This way, a complete loop is formed from social platforms to wallets to contract authorizations, rapidly expanding the impact of the incident from a few direct messages to systemic harm affecting the entire community.
Phishing Scripts Innovated: How Hackers Precisely Target User Weaknesses
● Iterative Schemes: The most common phishing tactics in the crypto field include disguising as official airdrop links, fake customer service and technical support, and inducing users to perform "seemingly harmless" signatures or authorizations. Some attacks even come with extremely well-disguised "official mirror sites," where the domain name and interface design are highly similar. Once users connect their wallets, import mnemonic phrases, or confirm contract authorizations on these sites, they effectively hand over asset sovereignty directly to the attackers, making recovery difficult afterward.
● High-Pressure Situations Undermine Rationality: In the Scroll-related incident, the combination of "fake official direct messages + urgent notification tone" created a high-pressure environment—phrases like "account abnormality requires immediate verification" or "limited-time qualification is about to expire" can easily create psychological pressure on users, making them feel that "if I don't click now, I'll lose out or something bad will happen." Under artificially compressed time, many people skip verification steps, directly clicking links and following prompts, thus completing fatal authorizations to their wallets in the most vulnerable seconds.
● User-Executable Defensive Lines: In the reality where both technical thresholds and attack methods are constantly improving, ordinary users can only protect themselves through a simple but "mechanically executed" security process:
● Do not click any links in direct messages, regardless of whether the sender is a founder, official, or "partner";
● Any information involving assets, airdrops, or authorization operations should be verified at least through one public channel (project official Twitter, Discord, official announcements, etc.);
● Regularly check all wallet authorizations and revoke unnecessary long-term authorizations;
● Split high-value assets into cold wallets or read-only addresses to avoid frequent high-risk interactions in the same wallet.
Regulatory Discussions and Whale Games: Security Anxiety Spreading Across the Market
● Background Noise of Compliance Issues: In the same week that the Scroll incident unfolded, discussions at the Davos Forum regarding the regulatory framework for dollar-pegged tokens and the impact of asset tokenization once again brought security and compliance anxieties to the forefront. Echoing the statements from traditional financial institution representatives, debates within the crypto circle over "custodial security, on-chain transparency, and user protection mechanisms" have also intensified. The theft of social accounts may seem like an isolated incident, but it resonates with broader regulatory topics—an opaque and non-compliant environment amplifies the consequences of any security vulnerabilities.
● Cautious Signals in Whale Positions: On-chain and derivatives data also reflect risk-averse sentiment. Research briefs show that a whale address on the Hyperliquid platform has a total holding scale of $5.772 billion, with short positions accounting for as much as 52.74%. In the current market structure, this "almost equal long and short positions, with shorts slightly prevailing" reflects a high level of caution against short-term risks—regardless of how bullish the market narrative may be, funds are becoming more conservative and sensitive in practical operations.
● Divergence in Asset Preferences: On the other hand, ARK Invest's fund ARKF bought stocks of Coinbase, Circle, and Bullish this past Friday. Even without precise details on the amounts, the action itself sends a signal: institutions are more willing to increase their stakes in targets with clear compliance paths and relatively stable regulatory relationships, rather than chasing high-leverage speculative sectors without limits. Coupled with BNB's price dropping below $880, with a 24-hour decline of 1.36%, it is evident that capital is increasingly wary of both on-chain risks and centralized platform risks at high levels. The incident of social account theft serves as a concrete footnote to this overall security anxiety.
From Officials to Retail Investors: The Security Responsibility Chain in the Crypto World
● Institutional Responsibility of Project Teams: Based on the lessons from the incident, project teams clearly have more room for improvement in account management, including mandatory multi-factor authentication, restricting high-privilege account login devices, conducting strict authorization audits for third-party tools and bots, and establishing internal permission levels and approval flows. Additionally, emergency plans for "how to quickly stop the bleeding after an account is stolen, unify external statements, and promptly close potential on-chain entry points" should be incorporated into regular project governance processes, just like contract audits, rather than being improvised after an incident occurs.
● Resetting User Survival Guidelines: For ordinary participants, it is necessary to deliberately internalize "any link is suspicious" as a fundamental survival logic, rather than reflecting on what to do only after being scammed. This means that in daily operations, even when facing familiar projects, commonly used DApps, or well-known KOLs, one must maintain a natural hostility towards links, authorizations, and signatures, forming a habit of "doubt first, verify, and then operate," rather than the opposite.
● The Firewall Role of Media and Communities: When high-impact accounts are hacked, information dissemination often occurs exponentially, and at this time, media, data platforms, and community KOLs play a crucial "buffer layer" role—quickly releasing clarifications and security alerts, pushing key information like "do not click links" and "account stolen" to more circles, thereby weakening the spread efficiency of scam content. For many users who have not yet directly encountered phishing direct messages, this layer of firewall may be the last barrier to prevent asset loss.
Can a Theft Incident Change the Industry's Memory?
The theft of Scroll co-founder Kenneth Shen's X account once again highlights an old issue in the crypto world: there exists a deep-rooted contradiction between the "trust structure centered on KOLs and executives" and the "extremely fragile reality of account security" in the entire industry. When users outsource their time, attention, and financial decisions to a few information sources, these accounts become prime targets for attackers, and the current protective systems are clearly insufficient to match this weight.
Looking ahead, on one hand, the improvement of social account security tools—including stronger multi-factor authentication, smarter anomaly behavior monitoring, and team-level account management solutions—may reduce the frequency of breaches of executive and official accounts; on the other hand, more visualized on-chain authorizations and earlier risk warnings in product design can provide users with another chance to reconsider "before the final click." Only when the security mechanisms on the social side and the on-chain side form a closed loop can similar incidents truly be compressed to a controllable range.
In a context of tightening regulation, a macro environment full of uncertainties, and intensified games between whales and institutions, security is quietly transforming from a "cost center" to the primary source of profit for every crypto participant: preserving existing assets and identities is often more realistic and certain than chasing the next doubling of coins. Whether the incident of Scroll's executive account breach will become a turning point for the industry's memory to be truly rewritten ultimately depends on whether project teams, platforms, media, and users can transform today's awakening into tomorrow's routine actions.
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