According to Cointelegraph, the acquisition of Fortress Trust by financial technology company Ripple on September 8 was accelerated due to a security incident involving a third-party analytics vendor. Ripple confirmed that discussions between the companies intensified after the vendor's cloud tools were compromised, resulting in a loss of $12 million to $15 million for Fortress. The majority of the funds were in Bitcoin (BTC), with smaller amounts in USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT).
Ripple, an investor in Fortress since its seed round in 2022, stepped in to make customers whole. The company stated that there were no breaches to Fortress technology or systems, and customers were notified immediately. The incident sparked controversy in the crypto community, with BitGo CEO Mike Belshe accusing Fortress of not being forthcoming about the event and downplaying it. Fortress co-founder Kevin Lehtiniitty defended the company, stating that BitGo was fully informed from the start and hinting at a rejected acquisition proposal from BitGo.
Ripple announced plans to further invest in Fortress' group, including ongoing discussions with parent company Fortress Blockchain Technologies and FortressPay. The company's representative stated that Fortress had been entertaining acquisition conversations with numerous parties for a couple of months, focusing on growing their payments business.
