Continuing Woes for FTX Users: Phishing Attacks and Ongoing Disruptions

Continuing Woes for FTX Users: Phishing Attacks and Ongoing Disruptions

Crypto News – Months after the closure of FTX following its founder Sam Bankman-Fried‘s departure, customers of the exchange are grappling with persistent issues. These problems have left millions of users unable to access substantial sums of capital locked within the troubled exchange.

Adding to the turmoil, FTX’s former users are now falling victim to a new wave of phishing attacks targeting their FTX-associated email accounts. This comes just a week after Kroll, the claims agent responsible for the bankruptcy proceedings, fell victim to a SIM swapping attack. This attack exposed sensitive customer information, including account balances, phone numbers, and home addresses.

The fallout from this breach extended beyond FTX, affecting customer data from other insolvent cryptocurrency companies like Genesis and BlockFi. While critical data such as crypto account passwords remained unscathed, users were cautioned about the potential for scammers to impersonate entities involved in the bankruptcy process.

Seizing upon the trove of information obtained, the perpetrators wasted no time in crafting deceitful emails promising the recovery of lost capital to affected users. The premise was simple: users needed to link a cryptocurrency wallet to their account to facilitate the supposed capital retrieval.

One such email, witnessed by CoinDesk, declared, “You are eligible to initiate the withdrawal of digital assets from your FTX account. Withdrawals will be processed in USDC, corresponding to the balance of digital assets present in your wallet during the platform’s suspension.”

The phishing email further enticed users with the option to “withdraw to an external ERC20 wallet” by clicking a provided link. Falling victim to this scam could lead to a catastrophic loss of token holdings, as scammers might request private key data for unauthorized transfers.

The incident involving SIM swapping centers around fraudsters manipulating mobile carriers into activating SIM cards that they control. Subsequently, these scammers target phone numbers, exploiting victims’ data to pilfer passwords, financial information, cryptocurrencies, and other valuable assets.

In the midst of these security concerns, FTX took proactive measures to temporarily freeze affected user accounts within the customer claims portal on Saturday. The claims portal serves as the official platform through which creditors can submit pertinent details about their accounts.