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 In the past week, at least three Coinbase users have fallen victim to scammers impersonating Coinbase representatives, with one person reportedly losing over $1 million.
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On July 7, Tegan Kline, co-founder of Edge &amp; Node, <a style="color: #0000ff;" href="https://twitter.com/theklineventure/status/1810068252900376999?t=aCHWYZV4AKX1TvVmYsJaFg&amp;s=19" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">shared</a> an incident involving a “good friend.” According to Kline, the scam began with a call from someone claiming to be from Coinbase security team member.&nbsp; The victim received a seemingly official email from Coinbase, confirming they were speaking to a legitimate representative. The scammer then falsely claimed the victim’s wallet was “connecting directly with the blockchain,” causing unauthorised transactions.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
 CT, a member of the community urgently needs your help.
 $1.7 Million stolen – A good friend’s self custody wallet was drained by a scammer yesterday, July 6th.
 TLDR of how it went down below (3 pages)<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/2935.png" alt="⤵" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;">
 You can find the Ethereum transactions with links in the comment below.… <a href="https://t.co/OTx3wslz6R" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">pic.twitter.com/OTx3wslz6R</a>
 — Tegan.eth <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f305.png" alt="🌅" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;">,<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f9a9.png" alt="🦩" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;"> (@theklineventure) <a href="https://twitter.com/theklineventure/status/1810068252900376999?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">July 7, 2024</a>
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The victim was directed to a website and asked to enter their seed phrase to stop the transactions. Despite knowing the risks, the victim entered a portion of the phrase without submitting it. Hours later, their self-custody wallet was drained of $1.7 million.
Hiro Systems CEO Alex Miller <a style="color: #0000ff;" href="https://twitter.com/alexlmiller/status/1810103837182874007?t=FLbcQj96wlXs9NSUn24j1A&amp;s=19" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">explained</a> that websites like the one the victim was directed can capture data as it’s entered, making even partial reveals of seed phrases vulnerable to brute-force attacks.
Miller also <a style="color: #0000ff;" href="https://twitter.com/alexlmiller/status/1810074926478713052?t=FHeX6B-_rMbD_u4SktZVFQ&amp;s=19" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">shared</a> that he was recently targeted by a similar scam. He suspects his information was <a style="color: #0000ff;" href="https://www.cointracker.io/blog/sendgrid-data-breach" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">leaked</a> in 2022 from CoinTracker’s email service provider database. 
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 “Specifically, they were using the Coinbase API key connecting to CoinTracker to verify that they were me (in addition to other info),” 
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he said.
He advised users to rotate their API keys if they’ve been using CoinTracker.
Two other X users, “<a style="color: #0000ff;" href="https://twitter.com/Paul04Trader/status/1808138689345618378?t=3lKtCN5pK0aAJKvEw9KsRQ&amp;s=19" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">TraderPaul04</a>” and “<a style="color: #0000ff;" href="https://twitter.com/beanxDeFi/status/1810030089393861004?t=qAlPu2O6LdFCOQ8xGX7FeQ&amp;s=19" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">beanx</a>,” also <a style="color: #0000ff;" href="https://twitter.com/Paul04Trader/status/1808138689345618378?t=3lKtCN5pK0aAJKvEw9KsRQ&amp;s=19" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">reported</a> similar encounters with scammers posing as Coinbase representatives last week. These attempts involved claims of suspicious login activities and fake password reset links.
As of press time, Coinbase had not yet released an official statement on these claims of representatives claiming false connections to it.&nbsp;
Meanwhile, these incidents come days after blockchain security firm <a style="color: #0000ff;" href="https://defi-planet.com/2024/07/crypto-phishing-scams-reach-new-heights-314-million-stolen-in-first-half-of-2024-new-reports-reveals/#google_vignette" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Scam Sniffer published a report that cryptocurrency phishing scams</a> saw a marked increase in profitability in the first half of 2024. According to the firm, malicious actors successfully stole over $314 million worth of cryptocurrency, a 6.44% increase compared to the previous year. Notably, $58 million of this total came from just 20 high-value targets, with one victim suffering an $11 million loss – the second-largest individual crypto theft.
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The post <a href="https://defi-planet.com/2024/07/coinbase-users-targeted-in-sophisticated-phishing-scams-losses-mount/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Coinbase Users Targeted in Sophisticated Phishing Scams, Losses Mount</a> appeared first on <a href="https://defi-planet.com" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">DeFi Planet</a>.

Coinbase Users Targeted in Sophisticated Phishing Scams, Losses Mount

DeFi Planet

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