Last week, at least three Coinbase users and one crypto user reported being targeted by scammers impersonating Coinbase. One of the victims claimed to have suffered a loss of $1.7 million.

The scammer called the victim, claiming to be from Coinbase's security team, and confirmed in an email from Coinbase that the victim had "spoken with an official representative at Coinbase."

The scammer claimed that the victim's wallet "connected directly with the blockchain" and therefore the transactions were leaving his wallet. It then showed a transaction popping up in another email from Coinbase.

The scammer redirected to a website where the victim had to enter the seed phrase to stop the transactions. The victim knew it was “unsafe” but entered “part” of her statement anyway.

A few hours later, $1.7 million was withdrawn from their wallets.

Alex Miller, CEO of Hiro Systems, stated that such sites "capture data even as it is being logged in" and that revealing part of the victim's seed phrase is likely enough for the "bad guys to extort the rest."

Approximately $1.19 billion was lost due to crypto security incidents in the first half of 2024, and $900 million of these losses were stolen through phishing and seed phrase attacks.

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