Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared with the crypto neighborhood particulars of the current hack of his X account. Through a publish on the decentralized social media platform, Farcaster, on September 12, Buterin confirmed he had misplaced his X account to hackers through a SIM swap assault.
Vitalik Buterin Confirms SIM Swap Hack Was Behind $691,000 Theft
On September 9, hackers took over Vitalik’s Buterin X account and posted a hyperlink asserting the launch of pretend commemorative non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from software program firm Consensys.
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Utilizing this hyperlink, the dangerous actors stole $691,000 value of property from a few of Vitalik’s 4.9 million followers who had related their wallets to mint the supposed commemorative NFTs.
Replace: $691k drained (one other 33% in drainer payment handle) pic.twitter.com/AVIShqDlMU
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) September 9, 2023
Curiously, an X consumer with the deal with Satoshi_767 said that the exploit appeared as a SIM swap assault. This type of hack happens when hackers management a goal’s cell phone quantity, utilizing it to entry their social media accounts, financial institution accounts, crypto wallets, and so on.
Nonetheless, this idea was disputed by on-chain investigator ZachXBT, who claimed Buterin’s prominence within the crypto neighborhood exposes the Ethereum co-founder to all kinds of assaults.
Three days later, Vitalik Buterin took to Farcaster, confirming the hack was attributable to a SIM swap assault. Nonetheless, he has now recovered entry to his SIM account. Buterin stated:
Lastly acquired again my T-mobile account (sure, it was a sim swap, that means that somebody socially-engineered T-mobile itself to take over my telephone quantity).
As well as, the Ethereum co-founder suggested customers to take away their telephone quantity from X, because it was “enough” to allow a password change, thus nullifying the two-factor authentication (2FA) safety system.
SIM Swap Assaults Stay On The Rise
The current assault on Vitalik Buterin solely provides to the rising checklist of SIM swap assaults in the previous few months towards crypto traders and founders.
In August, Bitcoinist reported that Bart Stephens, co-founder of Blockchain Capital, a enterprise capital agency, misplaced over $6.3 million value of property in a SIM swap hack.
In the meantime, the Gutter Cat Gang NFT undertaking additionally misplaced management of their X account to a SIM swap hack in July, resulting in the lack of $765,000 value of NFTs by the undertaking’s consumer neighborhood.
Zach XBT not too long ago posted on X that over $13.3 million have been misplaced to 54 SIM swaps within the final 4 months to emphasise how rampant these assaults are.
The on-chain investigator additionally kicked towards the 2FA authentication mechanism, urging crypto customers to make use of an authenticator app or safety key system.
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