The cryptocurrency community has received yet another reminder to stay vigilant in the bull market as a hardware wallet user has reported massive losses, which have been linked to a phishing attack.
The crypto user, identified as “Anchor Drops” on X, took to the social networking platform on Dec. 13 to report personal losses of 10 Bitcoin (BTC) on their Ledger Nano S wallet.
In addition to the alleged loss of roughly $1 million in BTC, Anchor Drops said they lost $1.5 million worth of non-fungible tokens (NFT) stored in the same wallet.
The cryptocurrency community and Ledger have linked the incident to a phishing hack that occurred a few years ago but has only surfaced recently.
Ledger points to malicious transactions from years ago
Ledger told Cointelegraph that Anchor Drops “seems to have been a victim of phishing and malicious transactions many years ago.”
The wallet manufacturer referred to an X post by community member KDean, who linked the loss to a phishing transaction involving the hacked Ethereum address shared by Anchor Drops.
Tagged “Fake_Phishing5443,” the alleged phishing transaction occurred on Feb. 22, 2022.
X user Anchor Drops claimed he lost 10 BTC and $1.5 million in NFTs stored on Ledger. Source: Anchor Drops
Several blockchain security platforms confirmed that the fishing transaction caught by KDean was the likely culprit of the losses.
“Blockchain evidence shows they signed a phishing transaction nearly three years ago, unknowingly granting approval to a malicious actor,” Hakan Unal, senior scientist at the blockchain security platform Cyvers, told Cointelegraph.
“The hacker remained dormant for years before eventually draining the wallet,” Unal said, stressing that the incident has nothing to do with Ledger itself. He added:
“We strongly encourage users to follow best practices and regularly review token approvals to ensure their assets remain secure.”
Questions surround Bitcoin loss
While the NFT losses were tied to Ethereum transactions, it remains unclear how the malicious activity extended to the user’s Bitcoin holdings.
“For the NFT, KDean’s comment can explain everything. But I don’t understand how the BTC is stolen,” Fuzzland’s lead security researcher Tony Ke told Cointelegraph.
The phishing transaction “Fake_Phishing5443” occurred 1,019 days ago. Source: Etherscan
Cyvers and Ledger suggested that a malicious transaction on Ethereum could have expanded to more blockchains within a wallet.
“If the phishing attempt also captured the user’s recovery phrase, the attacker could gain access to the wallet across all supported chains, including Bitcoin,” Cyvers’ Unal said.
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“As we know, the user got phished when it comes to the ETH wallet, we can assume user error on the BTC side too,” a spokesperson for Ledger told Cointelegraph.
Following the incident, Ledger has strongly advised users to be vigilant while signing any transactions onchain.
“While using hardware wallets is crucial in terms of security enhancement, it’s equally important to understand every interaction with the wallet and make informed decisions,” Fuzzland’s Ke added.
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