Crypto Whale Lost $24 Million In Phishing Attack

If small crypto investors fall for scams, the loss usually will not be huge. But when scammers target crypto whales to launch phishing attacks and they fall for it, the loss of crypto assets is huge. A crypto whale became a victim and lost $24 million worth of stETH and rETH in a phishing attack.

According to the Web3 security firm Scam Sniffer's investigation, the victim granted the token approval by authorizing increaseAllowance transactions. The crypto whale did not intend to do that but it happened somehow. It lets a third party spend tokens of different owners using smart contacts. The attackers transferred 4,851 Lido Staked ETH (stETH) and 9,579 Rocket Pool ETH (rETH) to their wallet.

It is found that the wallet address is related to 10 phishing sites. It shows the attackers did phishing attacks before. We see massive growth in the crypto ecosystem and it will accelerate more adoption. Unfortunately, the phishing attacks and scams in crypto increase while more people get involved in crypto. Criminal actors use advanced techniques to commit crimes and steal crypto assets.

According to the blockchain security company PeckShield, the attackers swapped tokens for 13,785 Ethereum (ETH) and 1.64 million Dai (DAI) tokens. Then they sent 451,000 DAI to FixedFloat which is an automatic cryptocurrency exchange. This crypto whale is a major liquidity provider on Uniswap in the WBTC/USDT pool.

The crypto whale gets involved in other DeFi protocols including Aave, Curve, and 1inch as well. Not only that, the whale is active on EOS and the OMG Network. It indicates that the victim is not an inexperienced person, otherwise, he/she would not be involved in different crypto platforms.

It is surprising that experienced individuals in crypto may fall for crypto scams or become a victim of phishing attacks. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has a huge potential and it could surpass the centralized crypto exchanges. People focus more on DeFi protocol where they may not go through KYC and face any restrictions.

While handing funds in crypto, a single mistake can cause a huge loss. We often allow permission while using different crypto platforms without paying attention to what it asks for. Criminal actors are waiting for potential victims to make a mistake so that they can drain the funds from their wallets.

Do you have too much exposure to a crypto project? You can ask this question and allocate the capital that you feel comfortable with. If you have too much exposure to a crypto project, it will affect you the most in case something goes wrong. Securing your crypto assets and managing your risk can protect you in crypto.

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