Key Takeaways
- Numerous crypto firms, over the years, have also suffered losses due to phishing scams by different hackers.
- These criminals also exploit other social engineering techniques on different crypto accounts and cart away a lot of money.
Numerous crypto firms, over the years, have also suffered losses due to phishing scams by different hackers. These criminals also exploit other social engineering techniques on different crypto accounts and cart away a lot of money. In light of this, FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, will pay out approximately 6 million dollars in damages to victims of a phishing scam. This activity permitted cybercriminals to operate unapproved trades on some of their users' accounts.
Read: A stablecoin's rise in market share has ignited the ‘Second Great Stablecoin War’
FTX to give a 'one-time' $6M compensation to phishing victims
Earlier in August, FTX's head executive, Sam Bankman-Fried, was in the news for telling Twitter the company's intentions about not acquiring Huobi. This time, also on Twitter, he
in a thread that the exchange typically does not grant remuneration to customers phished by illegal copies of other exchanges in the space. However, he continued by saying that the company would compensate them for this case.
Bankman-Fried also emphasized that FTX would never do this again as it was a one-time thing.
This recent FTX phishing attack had attackers obtaining user account application programming interface (API) keys, which allowed them to initiate unlicensed trades with their crypto exchange accounts. The invasion was discovered on Oct. 21, after 3Commas was notified that some of its users were engaging in unapproved transactions.
Following a lead investigation, FTX and 3Commas stopped the suspicious accounts to prevent additional damage and incapacitated all compromised API keys.
On Oct. 19, Bankman-Fried authored a blog post highlighting his opinions on cryptocurrency regulation, including a proposition termed the "5-5 standard," in which hackers retain either 5 million dollars or 5% of the quantity robbed, whichever is less.
In light of all this, the crypto community nicknamed October "hacktober". This development happened after Chainalysis disclosed on Oct. 13 that October 2022 was the most significant month ever for hacks, despite the review being released only midway through the month.
The review also revealed that approximately 3 billion dollars had been exploited in over 125 separate incidents since the beginning of the month.
How do you think other crypto firms can stop phishing from reoccurring again? Kindly share your thoughts with us in the comments section.