Mehdi Farooq, an investment partner at Crypto Venture Capital’s Hyperphere, revealed on Thursday that he lost his life savings in a targeted phishing attack orchestrated through fake Zoom calls.
exist postal On X, Farooq explained that the attack began with a message from a telegram from Alex Lin, a man he knew. “He wants to catch up,” Farouk said.
The two have interacted before, which makes outreach seem routine. Farooq then shared his calendar link with Lin, who arranged the next day’s meeting.
Minutes before booking the call, Lin asked to switch to the scaling business “for compliance reasons”, adding that one of his limited company Kent will join another familiar name. Given that Farooq has been managing the Treasury transactions, the request has not raised any suspicion.
Related: Investors lose $2.6 million in zero transfer phishing scam
Zoom update prompt will cause drainage of full wallet
Farouk said he joined the scheduled Zoom call and found no audio, although both participants appeared on the screen. During the chat, they instructed him to update Zoom to resolve the issue. Shortly after running the update, his system was damaged.
“Six wallets were exhausted (my fault, because my laptop was completely failed,” he wrote.
Farooq added that when the attack was in progress, the imitators continued to chat with telegrams, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with that. “He even joked, ‘Let’s catch up with SG.'” The hacker eventually ran out of “saves in a few minutes…”
Later, he discovered that Alex Lin’s real account was hijacked. According to Farooq, the attack was related to the threat actor affiliated with North Korea known as “Dangrouspassword”.
Earlier this year, Farouk join in Hypersphere is an investment partner focusing on liquids and risk opportunities. He used to work with the Animoca brand for nearly three years.
Cointelegraph contacted Farooq for comments, but received no response through the publication.
Related: Phishing scams Top encryption security threats in 2024 – certik
Phishing attack target encryption professionals
Violations are becoming more and more complex Phishing Attacks against Encryption Professionals.
Last month, Bitgo CEO Mike Belshe revealed the fraud Simulated Hardware Wallet Manufacturer Ledger It is mailing fake letters to encrypted users, urging them to “verify” their wallets or they may lose their chances of obtaining funds. Letters sent over USPS contain QR codes that may cause phishing sites.
In April, Bitcoin’s $330 million (BTC) Once was Stealed from an elderly person Onchain Detective Zackxbt Confirmed.
