According to BlockBeats, on June 12, ZachXBT reported on social media that his followers fell victim to a social engineering attack by individuals impersonating members of the a16z team. The victims unknowingly downloaded malicious software onto their computers, resulting in a loss of $245,000.
The fraudsters claimed to be Peter Lauten from the a16z team and reached out to a project team to discuss potential podcast collaborations. The real Peter Lauten had changed his Twitter handle from 'peter_lauten' to 'lauten', but the a16z official website still listed his old handle. Additionally, a few posts on the a16z Twitter account tagged his old username. The victims were unaware of this and were subsequently targeted by the impersonators in a social engineering attack.
The attackers tricked the victims into installing a fake meeting application called 'Vortax' on their devices. Unbeknownst to the victims, this application was actually malicious software. This incident serves as a reminder of the importance of verifying the identity of individuals and organizations before engaging in any form of digital communication or transactions.