A crypto trader lost $650,000 (roughly Rs 5 crore) worth of cryptocurrency and NFT to scammers. Domenic Iacovone shared his experience and sought help from experts on Twitter. He even offered $100K as reward for any assistance.
Iacovone said that he had stored his digital assets on a cryptocurrency wallet called MetaMask. He began to receive messages asking him to reset his Apple ID and password. Initially, the crypto trader did not heed the messages thinking of them to be sent by fraudsters.
Later, however, he received a call from Apple Inc. Iacovone noticed that the number was associated with Apple and it made him believe that the call was genuine.
“Got a phone call from Apple, literally from Apple (on my caller ID). Called it back because I suspected fraud and it was an apple number so I believed them," he tweeted.
The person on the phone told Iacovone that his account was compromised and that they require a OTP to verify his credentials. But, as soon as he shared the 6 digit verification code, the person hung up and in seconds Iacovone's account was wiped off of all the cryptocurrency and NFTs that he had saved on MetaMask.
Responding to Iacovone's tweet, a crypto security advisor @Serpent took cognizance of the matter and shared additional details about the incident, including the screenshots of Iacovone’s phone.
According to Serpent, there is a 12-digit number also known as a seed phrase, which must be kept confidential. That number is the only way to access a crypto wallet. Serpent revealed that MetaMask apparently stores the seed phrase file on iCloud which could have been how the scammers got access to Iacovone’s wallet. After that, all they needed was an OTP sent on his phone.
MetaMask, although did not comment on the incident, shared a tweet warning the users about a possible phishing scam.
Responding to Serpent's tweet, MetaMask shared a warning with the users about a possible phishing scam.
The company also suggested disabling iCloud backups for MetaMask specifically.
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