A user lost 783 $BTC (~$91 million) as a result of a social engineering attack. This was reported by an on-chain investigator, mmmda the amount.
The incident occurred on August 19 and coincided with the anniversary of the hack of lender #Genesis , which lost $243 million.
The attackers pretended to be representatives of a crypto exchange and the support service of a hardware wallet. This allowed them to gain access to the personal data of a Bitcoin investor and withdraw all funds from his balance in one transfer.
The hacker began laundering the stolen funds through a privacy-focused wallet #Wasabi the very next day after the theft. ZachXBT excluded the involvement of the North Korean hacker group #Lazarus , but did not name any specific suspects.
In response to a question about how to protect oneself from such attacks, the on-chain investigator advised treating any incoming call or email as a potential scam by default.
In a previous interview with #ForkLog , the head of investigations at ‘Shard’, Grigory Osipov, noted that social engineering is currently the most common type of attack.
Recall that in May, scammers stole $45 million from clients #coinbase in just one week. They posed as exchange support staff and coerced victims into providing access to their accounts or transferring funds to external wallets. $BTC
