Microsoft's official X account was briefly hijacked on Thursday by malicious actors promoting an unauthorized crypto token inspired by the company's historic paperclip assistant, Clippy, and the MSFT stock ticker.
During the incident, the compromised account followed a promotional account, reposted one of its tweets, and temporarily changed its profile picture to Clippy. The unauthorized posts were removed within approximately 30 minutes, followed by an apology tweet that was also quickly deleted, though screenshots were preserved.
Microsoft subsequently confirmed the breach to media outlets. In its communication, the tech giant stated that it never authorized any token using its intellectual property, clarified that tokens bearing similar names offer no ownership rights in Microsoft Corporation, and indicated plans to pursue legal action to remove the token and its associated marketing.
The token, trading under the ticker CLIPPY, was heavily promoted by an X account called Clippy MSFT, which touted liquidity pools allegedly worth over $200,000 and claimed the pools were backed by actual Microsoft shares. That assertion remains unverified, and Microsoft maintains no official link to the token.
This incident reflects a broader pattern of high-profile X account compromises in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, attackers previously hijacked Microsoft India's X account to impersonate trader Keith “Roaring Kitty” Gill and push a fraudulent token. Similar attacks targeted Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and accounts linked to SpaceX and Starlink earlier this year to promote unauthorized meme coins.
