A Crypto investor Michael Terpin lost roughly 1,5oo bitcoins on January 7, 2018, after falling victim to a SIM swap attack, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The bitcoin stake was worth $24 million that day, roughly three weeks after the asset hit its record high price.
The incredibly precise hack involves thieves taking control of a phone number and using it to access email accounts, bank reserves, and even crypto wallets.
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One crypto investor lost bitcoin worth as much as $24 million after falling victim to a new kind of hack known as SIM swapping, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Michael Terpin was hit by the attack on January 7, 2018, days after bitcoin reached its record high price. Thieves stole roughly 1,500 bitcoins by taking control of his phone number and using Google's "Forgot password?" feature to gain access to his email. With possession of the two personal accounts, the thieves hacked Terpin's crypto wallet, stole the digital assets and quickly sold them, according to WSJ.
Bitcoin traded between $16,969 and $15,790 per coin on January 7, 2018. The digital coin now trades at roughly $8,700.
Source:
Wall Street journal
That's very unfortunate. We all work hard here investing on crypto making sure that we can secure a bountiful life in the future but by just one little mistake, we can end up loosing it all in a snap. Let us take this unfortunate event as a lesson learned for us to be more careful and more wise with our investment. Always avoid putting too large money on our wallet and always make sure that it is well secured to avoid getting attacked. As soon as you put up a large amount of bitcoin on your wallet, you are already putting yourself at great risk.