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Hacker makes rare move to refund $71 million in cryptocurrency
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After losing all hope in a recent phishing attack involving a merchant, the hacker showed a gesture of good faith with a partial refund. Second According to crypto analytics provider Lookonchain, a trader reportedly lost 1,155 WBTC worth $71 million due to a phishing attack about six days ago.
As described at the time, there was what appeared to be a poisoned address in the transaction. The scammer generated an address similar to the one owned by the victim, as evidenced by the initial and final alphanumeric symbols. This hacker then funded the fake address with $0, and as such, it appeared in the victim’s transaction history.
Without suspecting anything, as the middle part of most addresses is usually obscured, the victim sent the massive sum of $71 million to the hacker. While many of these attack strategies are common, this one has been the most publicized of late.
In a unique turn of events, Lookonchain revealed that the hacker had started refunding the stolen funds, which were converted to Ethereum. At the time of the update, a total of 4,676 ETH had been refunded to the victim, worth approximately $14.2 million. As it stands, it’s unclear whether the refund is based on generosity or a whitehat event where the hacker ends up receiving a bounty.
While returning the stolen funds is a great gesture, this is not the first time such an action has been taken by hackers. There are precedents in this sense. Most of the stolen money that was refunded belonged to the DeFi Poly Network protocol. The hacker, who stole over $600 million from the stolen funds, returned all the money, to the amazement of many.
There are many cases of scams in the crypto ecosystem lately, with hackers now resorting to AI technologies like Deepfakes to scam naive victims. Instead of relying on refunds, industry leaders do raise awareness among communities to adopt the best security standards to avoid falling prey to scams.
About the author
Goffredo Beniamino
Godfrey Benjamin is an experienced crypto journalist whose main goal is to educate everyone around him about the prospects of Web 3.0. His love for cryptocurrencies was born when, as a former banker, he discovered the obvious advantages of decentralized money compared to traditional payments. With his vast experience covering various aspects of Web3, Godfrey’s articles have been published in Blockchain.news, Cryptonews, and Coingape, among others.