Someone lost $91 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) earlier this month after falling victim to a social engineering scam, according to an on-chain investigator.
The pseudonymous crypto sleuth ZachXBT notes the victim’s exchange and hardware wallet customer support were impersonated.
“The stolen funds began to peel off, and deposits to Wasabi were made by the threat actor. Coincidentally, this theft happened on the one-year anniversary of the $243 million Genesis Creditor theft.”
Wasabi is a privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet that left the US market last year.
ZachXBT says social engineering hacks are possible “because there are so many breaches that make your personal information widely available online, so threat actors can exploit it.” The on-chain investigator also notes that North Korea wasn’t behind this theft.
Social engineering scams are fraud schemes where attackers manipulate people into giving up sensitive information or access, instead of directly hacking computers or systems.
Earlier this year, ZachXBT noted that Coinbase users were losing more than $300 million annually to social engineering scams.
“I strongly urge the Coinbase leadership team to consider:
a) Making phone numbers optional for advanced users with Authenticator app or Security key added who are fully Know-Your-Client verified.
b) Add a beginner / elderly user account type that doesn’t allow withdrawals.
c) Improve community outreach (blog posts for recovering user funds, 24/7 incident response, flag theft addresses, block phishing domains, etc.)
d) Look into taking legal action against TLOxp / TransUnion for negligence on behalf of users as it’s the primary tool used by cybercriminals to harm users.
e) Initiate legal action against multiple US-based threat actors running these scams to make an example out of them.”
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