In the past two days, a shocking cryptocurrency theft case that occurred in May has gone viral on the Internet. The means of committing the crime may have exceeded the protection capabilities of most current cryptocurrency exchanges (CEX).
According to the victim himself, his assets stored in a CEX were stolen on May 3.
The victim originally thought that this case was the same as previous cases, which was caused by internal problems of the exchange, system problems, or crimes committed by acquaintances. However, during the investigation, it was discovered that the perpetrator had forged the victim's personal information through AI-synthesized short videos, deceived CEX's certification, and stole the assets in his account.
The victims lost a total of nearly $3 million.
In this incident, the most unexpected thing is that the perpetrator used AI to synthesize short videos to commit fraud - this is currently the most advanced fraud method.
As I write this, I recall a case that Mr. Buffett talked about when answering a question about artificial intelligence at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting some time ago: The old man said that when he saw a video of himself synthesized using AI, he immediately thought of AI being used to commit fraud.
Unexpectedly, not long after, such a case actually happened to the crypto assets that he hated so much.
Most of us have probably heard about fraud using AI, but I believe most people think that such incidents are far away from our lives. But this time it really happened in a familiar scene and with familiar things.
I believe that not only ordinary users like us, but even most CEXs will not have any defense against such scams, let alone deploy effective prevention measures and strategies.
In the modern society where the Internet is extremely developed, and we are still in an atmosphere where privacy is not well protected, everyone who goes online has more or less leaked our biometric information (face photos, fingerprint collection, iris collection...) and identity information (ID card, phone number,...), and this information can almost be easily obtained illegally from the Internet.
Therefore, as long as our encrypted asset information is exposed, hackers can easily locate our identity and carry out targeted crimes. In particular, the transfer of encrypted assets is still carried out online. This makes it easier for hackers to target encrypted users.
This security incident has opened Pandora's box, and I believe that demons will be released one after another in the future. I am afraid that existing CEX and individual users are unable to defend against these new methods of committing crimes.
The security issues of crypto assets have been discussed for a long time, but this topic will never go out of date.
Whenever I talk about security incidents or topics, I always strongly recommend that our readers use cold wallets and store crypto assets that they do not trade in cold wallets. Only you can withdraw the assets in the cold wallet, and as long as you strictly follow the procedures, it is difficult for outsiders to transfer assets from the cold wallet.
Technology is advancing at a rapid pace. In the crypto ecosystem, hackers often use new technologies more advanced than ordinary people. We are definitely not as good as hackers in terms of attack and defense. But we don’t need to compete in this regard. As long as we take some trouble and use a cold wallet, we can avoid most of the thefts.
I hope this incident can once again serve as a reminder to all our readers not to rely on luck anymore and to prepare a cold wallet to store important large assets in it.