Email breach: Tether and CoinGecko warn of phishing

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and CoinGecko co-founder and COO Bobby Ong have both issued warnings about a compromised email vendor.

Update:
one other company confirmed.
https://t.co/sD3OdPfecv

— Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) June 5, 2024

Phishing to follow

The identity of the vendor remains undisclosed as investigations are ongoing, but the public has been warned that its services are employed by several digital asset service providers. Users are advised to remain vigilant as a wave of phishing email scams promoting fraudulent airdrop distributions or token launches is expected to follow the breach. Ong clarified:

Several crypto companies may be affected via email blasts of fake token launches. […] There is no CoinGecko token being planned so don’t be duped by the phishing emails.

The issue of phishing attacks targeting the crypto space is not new. In January, several company emails, including those of Cointelegraph, Trezor, Token Terminal, and WalletConnect, were hijacked. Last November, Nansen customers reported receiving phishing emails after a third-party vendor leak. Earlier this year, scammers hacked domain registrar Namecheap and targeted MetaMask users with malicious emails.

In May, a cryptocurrency trader lost $69 million in a sophisticated “address poisoning” scam. Scammers create fake accounts mimicking the victim’s online crypto address and send small amounts, hoping the victim accidentally sends money to the fake address later.

Cryptocurrency-related scams, including “pig butchering” scams, are becoming increasingly prevalent and costly for investors. At the end of last year, United States authorities were able to recover about $500,000 worth of assets lost to pig butchering scams.

In mid-March, Massachusetts prosecutors also took some steps to return $2.3 million worth of digital assets seized from fraudsters to pig-butchering scam victims.

In an attempt to alleviate the issue, leading tech companies and crypto exchanges have recently formed the ‘Tech Against Scams’ alliance to combat the growing problem of online fraud and financial schemes, such as pig-butchering scams. The alliance aims to share expertise, raise awareness, and develop best practices to protect users from scammers who exploit new technologies like AI and cryptocurrencies.

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