Partner in a cryptocurrency investment fund loses "life savings" in a fake Zoom call

Mahdi Farouk, an investment partner in the cryptocurrency venture capital fund Hypersphere, revealed on Thursday that he lost a significant portion of his life savings in a targeted phishing attack conducted via a fake Zoom call.

In a post on X, Farouk explained that the attack began with a message he received via Telegram from someone he knows named Alex Lin. Farouk said, "He wanted us to connect."

He had communicated with Lin before, so the message seemed normal. After that, Farouk shared his Calendly link, and Lin scheduled a meeting for the following day.

Minutes before the scheduled time, Lin requested to switch to Zoom Business "for compliance reasons," adding that a limited partner named Kent - also a familiar name - would join the meeting. Since Farouk was managing treasury deals, the request raised no suspicions.

Fake Zoom update leads to complete wallet theft

Farouk said he joined the Zoom call, but he noticed there was no sound despite the participants being visible on the screen. Through the chat, he was asked to update Zoom to resolve the issue. After running the update, his device was compromised. He wrote: "Six wallets were stolen (my fault for not being more cautious). My mobile device was completely hacked.