Fake Crypto Airdrop: Tether’s CEO Warns Of Ongoing Supply Chain Email Exploit
June 05 2024 - 5:00PM
NEWSBTC
Tether’s CEO Paolo Ardoino has alerted the crypto space to another
wave of supply chain email scams in an X post. The CEO urged the
community to exercise extreme caution while the issue is resolved.
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On Wednesday, online reports surfaced of suspicious emails being
sent to the crypto community. Per the reports, investors received
emails from crypto companies offering an upcoming token airdrop.
First, users received emails from Bitfinex announcing “exciting
news” for the exchange. The email revealed an upcoming ERC20
airdrop of their “new $BFX token” for all Bitfinex users. The
reason behind the airdrop was the recent approval of Ethereum spot
exchange-traded funds (ETF). The email offered a “claim now” link
that redirected to a website asking to connect to the user’s
wallet. Despite the suspicious look of the email, investors doubted
its legitimacy as it came from the crypto platform’s official
address. After being tested by the community, it was quickly
revealed that the lookalike website was a scam page. An X user
tested the page with an empty wallet and found they were “not
eligible” for the airdrop. However, the user tried Rabby Wallet’s
watch-only feature with a VB wallet. The user found that all the
ETH “would be sent to another wallet, so there was no airdrop for
vb.” The destination wallet was empty, which suggested that the
scam generated a new wallet for each victim. The user confirmed the
theory after testing it with a second wallet. This tactic would
make tracking the number of victims and the money involved more
difficult. Likewise, several users reported receiving strange
emails from Coinbase asking to verify secondary addresses. The
racist email claimed that the crypto exchange was shutting down and
stated that all funds would be lost if they didn’t verify their
secondary email for withdrawal authorization. The email also came
from the official Coinbase address. However, the post was
unauthorized as the sender used racial slurs and doxed himself.
Paolo Ardoino Warns Of Ongoing Crypto Scam Tether and Bitfinex’s
CEO, Paolo Ardoino, took X to address the situation. In his post,
Ardoino revealed he had received reports from two independent
sources confirming that a prominent vendor used by crypto companies
had suffered a security breach. The vendor, which was not named,
manages the mailing lists of several important crypto companies.
Similarly, CoinGecko’s COO Bobby Ong warned users about the ongoing
supply chain email attack targeting the community: Several crypto
companies may be affected via email blasts of fake token launches.
Be careful with email newsletters in the coming days. Despite being
affected by the security breach, Ong assured users that CoinGecko’s
website and mobile app had not been impacted and were safe to use.
Moreover, he clarified that the crypto-tracking website was
not launching a token, nor did it have plans to. It’s worth noting
that this is not the first time a supply chain email attack has
targeted the crypto industry. In January, a massive phishing
campaign drained around $600,000 from investors after a scammer
sent unauthorized emails from different crypto-related companies.
Related Reading: Ethereum (ETH) Set For ‘Glorious Year,’ Analyst
Eyes $10,000 Target It was revealed at the time that a member of
the exploited vendor’s customer support team became the initial
point of compromise. As of this writing, there are no official
reports of affected users or lost funds yet. Featured Image from
Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
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