Users of the popular Bitcoin and altcoin exchange FTX fell victim to a phishing attack. According to blockchain journalist Colin Wu, $1.6 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from a user’s account. At the heart of the event is the 3Commas trading bot service. FTX said it will cover users’ losses. Here are the details…
Bitcoin and altcoins stolen
Chinese journalist Colin Wu stated that he received a report that an FTX account was hacked. According to a report from a Chinese user, traders who “contra trade” with DMM governance token DMG pairs were affected by the attack. The result of 5,000 transactions was $ 1.6 million from the users’ account. The user said he started using the robot a year ago. He said the registration was done without the need to update the FTX API. This gave the 3Commas bot access to the contra trade. FTX exchange users affected by this event were those who used bots to trade on the platform.
Users told WuBlockchain that FTX’s feedback was that the API KEY of 3commas was leaked, and that similar situations were not isolated cases. After the user submitted the police case filing notice, FTX did not make any reply or freeze. 3commas said no leaks have occurred.
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 21, 2022
Trading bot 3Commas supported these transactions through contra trading. Contra trading involves buying and selling any number of listed assets and reversals that occur within six months of trading. The user’s account is almost completely drained. 10 Bitcoins, hundreds of Ethereums and thousands of FTX Tokens (FTT) disappeared. Exchange FTX commented on the incident, stating that the platform needs a notification to freeze a user’s account.
Platforms made a statement
The situation was later addressed in a tweet by 3Commas. The trading platform stated that the situation is primarily on their agenda. Shortly after, 3Commas published a blog post. He said the theft of API keys took place on phishing websites that “looked like the 3Commas interface.” “There were no breaches in 3Commas’s account security and API encryption systems or our partner exchanges’ account security and API encryption systems,” the trading platform said. It stated that “only three users claimed to be affected.”
13) But in this particular case, we will compensate the affected users.
THIS IS A ONE-TIME THING AND WE WILL NOT DO THIS GOING FORWARD.
THIS IS NOT A PRECEDENT.
We will not making a habit of compensating for uses getting phished by fake versions of other companies!
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) October 23, 2022
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said on Twitter that phishing scams in crypto have become “sophisticated” lately. He also made it clear that while FTX has control over preventing fake versions of its website from being exposed and deceiving users, there is little the exchange can do about other websites.
Bankman-Fired said the latest phishing attack was caused by the problem with 3Commas’ website, not FTX. However, he promised his exchange would compensate affected FTX users this time. He underlined that this compensation is only a one-time thing. As we have reported as Kriptokoin.com, FTX is one of the largest crypto exchanges. It has a trading volume of $940,698,933 in the last 24 hours.
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