Breaking Bad star’s X account hijacked for fake meme coin promotion

The memecoin was part of a pump-and-dump scheme that briefly saw its market cap exceed $8 million, before collapsing once the scam was revealed.

Hackers have embedded malware in fake Office add-ins on SourceForge that swaps crypto wallet addresses copied to the clipboard with their own.

Dean Norris, famed for his role as Hank Schrader in Breaking Bad, had his X account hacked to promote a fraudulent memecoin. The coin, DEAN, which briefly reached a market cap of over $8 million, was part of a pump-and-dump scheme. Norris confirmed the hack on 26 January, stating that the coin was a ‘complete, fake scam’ and slamming Reddit users who blamed him for the incident.

The hackers used Norris’s likeness in a doctored video and images to deceive people into thinking he was endorsing the token. Although the promotional posts were eventually removed, screenshots of the fraudulent content circulated online. Blockchain data showed a massive spike in the coin’s value, which quickly collapsed after the scam was exposed.

It is not the first time Norris has been targeted by crypto fraudsters. In November, his account was also hijacked in a similar scheme, with connections to other high-profile account takeovers. Norris, who rarely uses X and does not have a Telegram account, revealed he was unaware of the hack until friends alerted him.