UK Government Minister Lucy Powell’s X account was hacked on Tuesday morning in a cryptocurrency scam for a phony “House of Commons” digital currency, multiple news sources disclosed Wednesday.
Hackers Create Fake Government Cryptocurrency
The cyberattackers put up a number of posts on Powell’s authenticated account stating “$HCC” was “a people-powered digital currency putting people’s power to the blockchain.”
Powell, the leader of the House of Commons and Manchester Central’s representative, has close to 70,000 followers on the platform.
Certain messages added the formal House of Commons logo to give the scam the air of legitimacy. Powell’s office said they “pursued steps promptly to lock in the account and delete deceptive posts” after they became aware of the breach.
Hackers employ the latest tactics to break into unsuspecting individuals’ social media accounts. Image: Bill Hinton/Getty Images
Recent letters In Series Of Top-Profile Account Takeovers
This attack follows a pattern of similar hacks targeting public figures with large follower counts. BBC journalist Nick Robinson fell victim to a similar scheme earlier this year when hackers used his account to promote a fake cryptocurrency called “$Today.”
Robinson reported clicking on what he thought was a legitimate email from the social media platform, which gave hackers access to his account.
Leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell has had her X account hacked and is promoting a House of Commons cryptocurrency pic.twitter.com/05KKYfS8ho
— Daniel Green (@DanGreenJourno) April 15, 2025
‘Pump And Dump’ Scheme Yields Limited Returns
Luke Nolan, a senior research associate at digital asset manager CoinShares, recognized the hack as a traditional “pump and dump” scheme.
In this widespread scam, perpetrators create worthless cryptocurrencies, artificially pump up their price, persuade others to invest, and then sell their shares for profit before the price crashes.
Even though the scam targeted a high-profile government official’s account, the scam was relatively unsuccessful. The imposter coin attracted only 34 transactions, with the scammers making around £225 in profits.
Growing Trend In Account Hacking
Action Fraud also reports that there has been a high incidence of social media and email account hacking in 2024 to date, at 35,343. Security experts say they suspect most attacks start with emails that have a link to fake websites that pilfer passwords or gain unauthorized system access.
Minister’s X account hacked to promote crypto scam https://t.co/uXl5KE8n3l
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) April 15, 2025
Passwords can also be accessed via data breaches where users’ information is hacked and put on sale online. It takes scammers just a few hours to create and roll out counterfeit cryptocurrencies, and then they move swiftly once they have access to an account.
The UK Parliament official said they “take cyber security extremely seriously” and give members advice on how to manage online safety, but refused to disclose specific information on their cybersecurity practices.
Action Fraud advises people to safeguard their accounts by registering two-step verification and adopting hard, different passwords of three randomly chosen words.
Powell has been a leader of the House of Commons since Labour came to power in the summer. Her work entails scheduling the government’s legislative programme and safeguarding the rights of backbench MPs.
Featured image from Business Insider, chart from TradingView
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