Hackers Impersonate Saudi Crown Prince to Launch Fake Memecoin

Hackers compromised the X account of the Saudi Law Conference to promote a fake memecoin called KSA.

KSA Memecoin Fails to Gain Traction

On Feb. 17, hackers impersonating Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a fake memecoin called KSA. The launch was announced on the X account of the Saudi Law Conference, which later said its account had been hacked.

A report noted that the token’s lack of clear utility, tokenomics and official support sparked suspicion. Those suspicions proved warranted after the Saudi Law Conference disavowed content posted on its compromised social media account.

“We confirm that we are working urgently to recover the account, and we fully disclaim any unofficial publications issued through it during this period. We also apologize to our followers for any inconvenience this may cause, and urge everyone to be cautious and not interact with any suspicious content published through the account until further notice,” the Saudi Law Conference wrote on Linkedin.

Meanwhile, the report noted that while the KSA memecoin’s official launch date was Feb. 17, the token contract indicates it was created seven days earlier on the Solana-based memecoin launchpad pump.fun. Still, despite hackers’ attempt to trick users via the Saudi Crown Prince link, the KSA memecoin failed to gain traction and had a market capitalization of less than $8,000 a few hours after the “official” launch.

The attempt to use the Saudi Crown Prince’s name to fleece unsuspecting users is the latest incident in which hackers target social media accounts of high-profile figures or those with large followings. Since the start of the year, hackers have launched several fake cryptocurrencies or memecoins via compromised social media accounts.

While the high-profile targets eventually regain control of their social media accounts, in many cases this happens only after hackers have stolen millions of dollars.