What Businesses Can Learn from Slash's X Account Hack

Your business's social media accounts are valuable assets that need protection. Every day, cybercriminals target these platforms, looking for weaknesses they can exploit. When they succeed, the damage goes beyond lost access - they harm your brand reputation, customer trust, and ultimately your bottom line.

Slash's recent X account hack shows that no one is immune to these attacks. Even celebrities with substantial resources can fall victim to sophisticated hackers. This incident offers valuable lessons for businesses seeking to protect their online presence.

In this post, we'll explore what happened to Slash's account, why it matters to your business, and six practical steps you can take to protect your social media accounts from similar attacks.

What Happened To Slash's X Account?

On Wednesday, April 2, 2025, Slash, the Guns N' Roses guitarist, had his X account compromised by hackers. The attackers quickly used his verified platform to promote yet another cryptocurrency memecoin scheme.

The hack unfolded quickly, with the attackers first posting a tweet that read, "In 2 hours, we're launching a memecoin on SOLANA. Stay tuned..." And less than 30 minutes later, they followed up with, "Get ready to unleash your crypto power with GUNS – the memecoin for every Guns N' Roses fan!"

However, despite the account's reach and influence, the scam failed to gain any significant traction. Each $GUNS coin was valued at just $0.000003, and its market cap quickly collapsed from over $15,000 to a mere $3,351 at the time of writing – with each coin plummeting to $0.0000000292.

Following the incident, all cryptocurrency-related posts were deleted from Slash's X account once control was restored.

How You Can Protect Your X Account From Hackers

It's surprisingly easy to make a simple mistake that leads to compromised social media accounts. The NBA, NASCAR, DIOR, and the UFC experienced similar breaches recently, showing that even organizations with substantial resources remain vulnerable. Fortunately, there are several effective strategies businesses can implement to protect their accounts from hackers.

Update Your Passwords With More Complex Alternatives

Your passwords serve as the first line of defense against unauthorized access. Weak passwords are like leaving your front door unlocked—they practically invite intruders.

Create strong, randomly generated passwords that are at least 14 characters long. Use a mix of numbers, special characters, and both uppercase and lowercase letters. According to security experts, this character combination would take hackers approximately 805 billion years to crack through brute force methods.

Also, avoid recycling passwords across different platforms. When hackers breach one account, they typically try those same credentials on other sites. Using unique passwords for each platform prevents a single breach from cascading into multiple account takeovers.

Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) For Teams

Two-factor authentication adds a crucial extra security layer by requiring both your password and a time-sensitive verification code that changes every ~60 seconds.

However, while enabling 2FA is essential for blocking unauthorized access, traditional 2FA poses challenges for brands and organizations. Standard 2FA typically ties authentication to a single device or account, which becomes problematic when multiple team members need access to your social profiles.

Also, X's built-in 2FA has shown vulnerabilities in the past. We've seen it fail multiple times across various X account hacks, making it an imperfect solution for business accounts.

That's why companies should consider implementing team-based 2FA solutions. This approach enables multiple authorized users to access a single account with automatically changing codes. The major advantage is that when an employee leaves your company, you can manage access directly through your dashboard, ensuring only authorized personnel maintain access.

This eliminates the need to change passwords every time someone exits your organization, streamlining security management without compromising protection.

Report Phishing Accounts Immediately

Phishing scams attempt to steal personal information through deceptive emails, messages, or websites that appear legitimate. These attacks aim to trick users into believing they're responding to something necessary or desired.

These actions can lead to malware installation on your device, potentially exposing your credentials or providing backdoor access to your business accounts. Common phishing tactics include fake requests from banks, messages appearing to come from company executives, password reset notifications, website visit prompts, or download requests.

BBC's Nick Robinson fell victim to this exact tactic in February. Hackers sent Nick an email claiming his account had been flagged for violating community guidelines. The message included a link where he could supposedly review the flagged content. After a long day, Nick clicked the link, hoping to resolve the issue quickly.

By the time he realized his mistake, hackers had already taken control of his account and begun promoting cryptocurrency to his one million followers.

If you receive suspicious messages, report them immediately. This alerts platforms to these violations so they can take corrective action. The most effective way to protect your business from phishing is simply being vigilant—never click links, download files, or open documents from unexpected or suspicious sources.

Back Up Your Data

Regular backups are your safety net when other security measures fail. Store your important content, including photos and key documents, on external hard drives or cloud storage systems.

For social media specifically, consider using security tools that offer automatic daily backups of your content. This ensures that even if your account is compromised, you'll never lose valuable posts or engagement history.

Educate Your Staff On Cyber Security

The human element consistently remains the weakest link in cybersecurity, with phishing – a form of social engineering – being the most prevalent attack vector.

Train your employees to recognize online threats and respond appropriately to targeted attacks. Schedule periodic refresher courses to keep your team updated on emerging threats and prevention techniques.

Remember that phishing attempts often look remarkably legitimate—sophisticated scammers create emails, messages, and websites that perfectly mimic trusted brands. Develop a security checklist for staff to follow before entering credentials or sharing sensitive information through any link they receive.

Use Social Media Security Tools To Actively Protect Your Accounts

Social media security tools are specialized applications that monitor your accounts for suspicious activities such as unauthorized login attempts, unexpected profile changes, or mass content deletion.

These tools automatically flag suspicious messages, eliminating the need for manual verification and reducing response time to potential threats. They protect your logins, passwords, and sensitive data from malware attacks or keyloggers designed to steal information.

And in the event of a data breach, these tools provide step-by-step guidance for account recovery.

How Spikerz Can Help You Protect Your X Account

Spikerz offers complete protection for your social media profiles against various online threats through multiple security layers:

1. Spikerz detects brand impersonators attempting to spread misinformation, execute scams, and damage your reputation.
2. It helps prevent phishing attacks by identifying suspicious messages and links, even when they appear to come from trusted sources.
3. The platform guards against account hijacking by blocking spam and scam attempts from spreading to your followers.
4. If your email, password, or other sensitive information leaks online, Spikerz alerts you immediately so you can take protective action.
5. Spikerz analyzes your content before publishing to ensure compliance with community guidelines, helping you avoid shadowbans that limit your reach.
6. It automatically scans your existing audience to identify and remove bot accounts that distort your engagement.
7. And perhaps most importantly, Spikerz automatically backs up all your social media content, ensuring that even if your account is compromised, you never lose valuable content and can restore everything quickly.

Are You Ready To Improve Your Social Media Security?

Your social media accounts represent years of hard work and trust-building with your audience. Are you really willing to leave them exposed to hackers who could destroy everything in minutes?

Take control of your digital security today with Spikerz – because your brand's reputation is too valuable to protect with anything less.

Conclusion

Slash's X account hack serves as a powerful reminder that social media security isn't optional – it's essential for every business. As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, brands must adopt cutting edge security measures to protect their digital presence and reputation.

However, if you implement strong passwords, enable team-based two-factor authentication, report phishing attempts, back up your data, train your staff, and use specialized security tools like Spikerz, you’ll create multiple layers of defense against increasingly sophisticated attacks.

Don't wait for a security breach to take action. The cost of prevention is always lower than the price of recovery. Protect your social media accounts today with robust security practices and tools designed to keep hackers at bay.