Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

How to Lose a Fortune with Just One Bad Click

Summary: A scammer posing as Google support called Seattle battalion chief firefighter Adam Griffin from a real Google Assistant number, sent a security alert from a google.com address via Google Forms, and convinced him to approve a Google account recovery prompt on May 6, after which roughly $450,000 was transferred out of his Exodus wallet using a seed phrase he had stored in Google Photos. Days later, a caller identifying himself as 'Daniel Alexander' from Google used the same approach on Tony, a 42-year-old from northern California, who entered his seed phrase at a phishing site mimicking Trezor and lost 45 bitcoins.

Why it matters: A scammer who described himself to podcaster Junseth as a teenager said on the record that 'no one gets arrested' and that he had just scored a $1.2 million theft - and the same phony Google Support Case ID number appeared in both victims' fake alerts.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Data Breaches
Related