While everyone is awaiting the JUP airdrop, but it appears that the Spanish embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina is extremely desperate for free tokens.
The official Twitter account of the government of Spain in Bosnia and Herzegovina made a series of unexpected social media exclamations.
The tweets
The said tweets saw the account veer off from its usual diplomatic course and actively engage with many crypto projects.
The account has raised eyebrows since then because it inquired about participation in token airdrops that are connected to upcoming meme tokens, such as the recent launch of the WEN token.
In the crypto market, ‘airdrop’ refers to the coordinated distribution of coins or tokens to various wallet addresses, usually for free, which are often based on specific criteria.
The use of airdrops has become common as a marketing strategy aimed at enhancing engagement and attracting new followers.
However, the Spanish government’s account was not just riding the hype of the ‘wen token’ and seemed interested in every single token.
The account engaged with several smaller projects, such as Dymension, the game Star Heroes, Monad, and SatoshiVM.
The embassy’s thirst for crypto tokens was evident from the fact that it did not even spare Richard Heart, the controversial individual behind HEX.
The reason
Observers were left puzzled because of the erratic behavior because a government entity does not usually behave this way.
The embassy then confirmed through an emailed statement that its official Twitter account had suffered from a security breach.
It also added that they had taken the necessary measures with the social media network to regain control of the account.
The embassy also disclosed that they had informed the National Police Cyber Attack Group, the European Union and Cooperation, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the breach.
In a separate email, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the issue was being confidentially dealt by the government.
The background
There had been considerable speculation initially because no explanation had been provided for the issue.
While there are special indicators associated with verified accounts on Twitter, such as gold or blue checkmarks, there have been numerous changes in the verification program.
Therefore, it is no longer effective to assess the legitimacy of an account and the checkmarks are now considered meaningless.
In addition, it is not uncommon for large official accounts to deal with malicious takeovers because it has happened before as well.
The recent activity of the account mostly comprises of responses of blockchain projects that had also been a target of posts and spambot accounts, which further muddied the waters.
The incident was also similar to a recent security breach in which the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) saw its official account compromised.
The official Twitter account of the SEC was used by the attacker to falsely claim that all spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved.
This prompted Gary Gensler, the chairman of the SEC, to disavow the tweet. It has caused significant turmoil in the Bitcoin market.