After an artistic career spanning nearly 20 years, during which he participated in global art pieces like the 'Balloon Dog' series by famous artist Jeff Koons, artist Ed Soman decided to venture into the world of digital currencies in search of a brighter financial future.
He began his journey into the crypto world in 2017, and over the years managed to amass a fortune consisting of 17.5 Bitcoin and 225 Ethereum, worth more than two million dollars today! But this fortune evaporated due to a sophisticated scam.
The perpetrator was someone who claimed to be an employee in the security department of the popular Coinbase platform. This scammer used sensitive data that was leaked after bribing employees at a Coinbase customer support center in India.
The attacker exploited this information to carry out a 'social engineering' attack, a psychological fraud technique to convince the victim to disclose confidential information.
Soman, 67 years old and residing in Los Angeles, kept his digital assets in a Trezor One device, a secure storage method known as 'cold storage' ❄️.
On March 8, Soman received a suspicious message indicating an unauthorized access attempt to his account, followed by a call from someone named 'Brett Miller' claiming to be from the Coinbase security team.
In a professional manner, he convinced him to enter the secret recovery phrase of his wallet on a fake website that looked official. After nine days, another person contacted him to complete the scam.
The result? At the end of the call, all cryptocurrencies completely disappeared from his wallet.
The lesson? Even the most cautious users can fall into the trap if scammers have the right data and effective psychological methods!
Protect yourself:
Do not share your recovery phrase with anyone.
Avoid interacting with suspicious messages and calls.
Use multiple verification tools.
The digital world is full of opportunities... but it is also full of risks.
Stay vigilant.