(Source: Tom Raftery via Flickr/CC)
Carl Pei, co-founder of OnePlus, a smartphone company, said Tuesday that his Twitter account had been compromised via a third-party app called IFTTT and a tweet had been injected via his profile for an apparent cryptocurrency scam. IFTT - If This Then That - is a service that allows a user to program various kinds of responses to events in the world.
The Swedish entrepreneur warned his followers not to fall for the scam, which invites them to participate in an Initial Coin Offering for a fake new Nothing Coin cryptocurrency. The fraudulent tweet spreading the scam was sent from his verified account for about an hour on Tuesday afternoon, asking for investors to provide funding using the cryptocurrency Ethereum in exchange for receiving the new - and fake - Nothing Coin cryptocurrency, Pei says.