Home Email breach: Tether and CoinGecko warn of phishing

Email breach: Tether and CoinGecko warn of phishing

tl;dr

  • Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and CoinGecko COO Bobby Ong warn about a compromised email vendor and potential phishing attacks.
  • The vendor's identity is undisclosed, but users should beware of phishing emails promoting fake airdrops or token launches.
  • Cryptocurrency-related scams, including address poisoning and pig butchering, are rising, prompting tech firms to form an anti-scam alliance.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and CoinGecko co-founder and COO Bobby Ong have both issued warnings about a compromised email vendor.

Phishing to follow

The identity of the vendor remains undisclosed as investigations are ongoing, but the public has been warned that its services are employed by several digital asset service providers. Users are advised to remain vigilant as a wave of phishing email scams promoting fraudulent airdrop distributions or token launches is expected to follow the breach. Ong clarified:

Several crypto companies may be affected via email blasts of fake token launches. […] There is no CoinGecko token being planned so don’t be duped by the phishing emails.

The issue of phishing attacks targeting the crypto space is not new. In January, several company emails, including those of Cointelegraph, Trezor, Token Terminal, and WalletConnect, were hijacked. Last November, Nansen customers reported receiving phishing emails after a third-party vendor leak. Earlier this year, scammers hacked domain registrar Namecheap and targeted MetaMask users with malicious emails.

In May, a cryptocurrency trader lost $69 million in a sophisticated “address poisoning” scam. Scammers create fake accounts mimicking the victim’s online crypto address and send small amounts, hoping the victim accidentally sends money to the fake address later.

Cryptocurrency-related scams, including “pig butchering” scams, are becoming increasingly prevalent and costly for investors. At the end of last year, United States authorities were able to recover about $500,000 worth of assets lost to pig butchering scams.

In mid-March, Massachusetts prosecutors also took some steps to return $2.3 million worth of digital assets seized from fraudsters to pig-butchering scam victims.

In an attempt to alleviate the issue, leading tech companies and crypto exchanges have recently formed the ‘Tech Against Scams’ alliance to combat the growing problem of online fraud and financial schemes, such as pig-butchering scams. The alliance aims to share expertise, raise awareness, and develop best practices to protect users from scammers who exploit new technologies like AI and cryptocurrencies.

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The ReadWrite Editorial policy involves closely monitoring the tech industry for major developments, new product launches, AI breakthroughs, video game releases and other newsworthy events. Editors assign relevant stories to staff writers or freelance contributors with expertise in each particular topic area. Before publication, articles go through a rigorous round of editing for accuracy, clarity, and to ensure adherence to ReadWrite's style guidelines.

Radek Zielinski
Tech Journalist

Radek Zielinski is an experienced technology and financial journalist with a passion for cybersecurity and futurology.

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