Kaito AI and Founder’s X Hacked, Attackers Spread FUD and Profit $1M

Highlights:

• Hackers exploited Kaito AI’s accounts to spread false claims and trigger panic selling.
• Kaito AI quickly regained control, deleted fake posts, and reassured users about security.
• KAITO’s price dropped 16% as traders reacted, while the hacker profited $1 million.

On March 15, hackers compromised the social media accounts of Kaito AI, an AI-based crypto data platform, and its founder, Yu Hu, to profit from short positions. This attack differed from typical fake token scams. Hackers first placed short positions on KAITO tokens. DeFi Warhol stated they then used hacked accounts to spread false claims about Kaito AI’s wallets being compromised. They aimed to trigger panic selling, causing a price drop and securing profits for themselves.

Hackers are getting smarter. They didn't tweet a stupid CA and closed the replies like the majority do.

Instead, they shorted before tweeting a seemingly legit tweet concerning the $KAITO supply.

Perhaps also longed when they lost access. https://t.co/qRYmCQNWQK pic.twitter.com/R7kaMr09fy

— DeFi Warhol (@Defi_Warhol) March 15, 2025

Kaito AI Team Quickly Responds to Hack

Kaito AI team acted fast to control the situation. The team confirmed that hackers compromised its account and @Punk9277, owned by founder Yu Hu. Once they noticed the unauthorized activity, they quickly regained access to the hacked accounts and deleted the false posts.

The Kaito AI team confirmed that Kaito token wallets remained secure despite the social media attack. “We had high-standard security measures in place to prevent [the hack] — so it seems to be similar or the same as other recent Twitter account hacks,” the Kaito AI team added.

This account and @Punk9277 were just compromised.

The KAITO wallets were NOT and are NOT compromised.

We now have regained access to the twitter accounts.

Please bare with us as we investigate how this happened.

We had high standard security measures in place to prevent it -…

— Kaito AI 🌊 (@KaitoAI) March 15, 2025

The team said they had strong security measures in place. They believe this breach was part of a larger trend of social media hacks in crypto. The team is still investigating the situation. Yu Hu also shared an update after regaining access. He confirmed that KAITO wallets and token supply were safe. After discovering the breach, Yu Hu deleted the fake tweets and changed the password.

nothing related to KAITO was compromised, no wallets or supply

my X account and the Kaito one were both compromised – with the hacker then posting false tweets

once I was made aware, I checked the accounts and saw I was still logged into both so deleted the tweets, and…

— Yu Hu 🌊 (@Punk9277) March 15, 2025

KAITO Hack Causes Price Drop and $1M Hacker Profit

Despite the quick response, the incident immediately impacted the KAITO token’s market performance. On the day of the hack, KAITO’s price ranged between $1.56 and $1.34. This was a drop of over 16%. Some traders believed the false messages and quickly sold their tokens. This selling pressure sped up KAITO’s price decline.

Yu Hu stated that the same attacker was behind the recent DB News X account hack. He claimed the hacker made a total profit of $1 million by placing trades on Hyperliquid.

update –

we have a lead from @DefiSquared – looks like the same hacker associated with the recent hack on the @tier10k account is related to ours. overall profited close to $1mn from opening trades on hyperliquid ($300k today) – wallets below.

would appreciate it if anyone… pic.twitter.com/Aq0SElvhN9

— Yu Hu 🌊 (@Punk9277) March 15, 2025

At the time of writing KAITO was trading at was trading at $1.41 reflecting a 1.68% drop in the past 24 hours.

The Kaito AI breach is part of a larger trend in the crypto industry. Several similar incidents have occurred. On February 26, hackers took over Pump.fun’s X account to promote a fraudulent governance token called “$PUMP.” The attackers posted misleading announcements encouraging users to engage with the fake token. Earlier, on February 6, the official X account of Jupiter Exchange was compromised. The hackers used the account to promote scam tokens, leading to a sharp decline in the $JUP token price.