Even the boss of a crypto payment firm is not immune to cybertheft.
On Jan 31, more than US$110 million (S$150 million) worth of tokens were drained from several personal crypto wallets belonging to Ripple’s co-founder Chris Larsen.
He confirmed the case on X, formerly Twitter, after an analyst known as ZachXBT reported the theft on the social media platform.
Both did not elaborate on how hackers had gained access to Mr Larsen’s wallets.
According to San Francisco-based news outlet TechCrunch, this was the largest crypto heist in 2024 so far, and the 20th largest crypto theft to date.
While the amount of global funds stolen via crypto hacking fell by more than 50 per cent to US$1.7 billion in 2023 compared with 2022, the number of individual hacking incidents rose by 5.5 per cent in the same period, a report by blockchain research firm Chainalysis said.
In a recent study, Singapore-based cyber-security firm Group-IB detailed how a scam operation known as Inferno Drainer had drained at least US$80 million in assets from victims’ wallets in a year, before its developers shut it down in November 2023.
More than 100,000 victims were affected by this attack, according to crypto news site Cointelegraph.
On Jan 31, the authorities in Singapore warned that cyber criminals are increasingly using “crypto drainers”, a type of malware that allows hackers to empty crypto wallets, in their operations.
“While such cases have not been observed in Singapore, members of the public should remain alert to such cyber attacks that are happening globally,” the Singapore Police Force and Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) said in a joint statement on Jan 31.
“There are cyber criminal groups that develop ‘commercial’ crypto draining kits and provide services to other cyber criminals with limited technical expertise based upon a Drainer-as-a-Service model,” the two agencies said, adding that the criminals charge their users by taking a percentage of the stolen amount.
Crypto drainers are usually woven into phishing attacks, the agencies added.
Victims are tricked into clicking a malicious link or opening a malicious attachment, and by doing so, the drainers are able to steal from their wallets.
Crypto owners are advised to protect themselves from such scams, the agencies said.
They should be wary of attractive offers that appear too good to be true, such as promises of free tokens.
They should also verify the legitimacy of the parties they are interacting with before approving any transactions, and connect only empty crypto wallets when unsure about a crypto platform or project, the agencies added.
Victims of crypto scams should contact their crypto exchange immediately to freeze compromised accounts, and inform the police and CSA’s Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team.
