- A phishing scam on November 11 led to a $6.09M loss for a GIGA whale investor after malware compromised their digital wallet.
- Cybercriminals swapped 95.27M GIGA tokens for $2.1M in SOL, causing a rapid price drop from $0.63 to $0.54, as reported by Onchain Lens.
- The FBI is investigating the GIGA hack, which highlights the urgent need for advanced security as crypto phishing attacks become more sophisticated.
GIGA is one of the meme coins that faced a massive security incident on November 11. A whale investor had about $6.09 million in tokens stolen from him due to a highly professional phishing scam. The individual known as “Still in the Game” on X said the cybercriminals sent a malicious Zoom invitation link which installed malware on the device and then the digital wallet was compromised.
The attacker was able to steal 95.27 million GIGA tokens from three different wallets of the victim as reported by blockchain monitoring service Onchain Lens. However, the scammer was only able to swap the tokens for 11,759 SOL which is equivalent to approximately $2.1 million due to a market presale that caused the price of GIGA to drop from $0.63 to $0.54.
Phishing Scam Recovery Efforts
After the heist, the attacker knew to exchange the SOL tokens for USDT and USDC and then withdraw the assets to a new wallet to avoid getting caught. Onchain Lens also identified an effort to split the transaction by transferring 700 SOL to an account on the KuCoin exchange.
The FBI and a forensics team has taken over the case and are working to recover the stolen assets. Some of the things that their focus is on includes following the stolen funds and understanding the pattern that the attacker used in the process to identify other accounts that could have been hacked.
Crypto security firm Scam Sniffer also pointed out that the phishing link, “us04-zoom[.]us” used in this attack, is very similar to Zoom domain name, “us02web.zoom[.]us”. Attackers can readily dupe victims into downloading malware by copying the appearance of safe links.
Phishing Scam Risks
This incident highlights that phishing scams that are becoming more and more sophisticated to deceive crypto investors through gimmicks such as trust and time sensitivity. They usually work during moments of carelessness by the user, in a way that the fake link will seem harmless and safe.
The GIGA hack is not the only attack of its kind in the crypto industry; recently, phishing attacks have also targeted NFT investors through fake video call links. These events led to malware downloads that affected user’s devices and further led to the stealing of digital products.
According to blockchain analytics firm CertiK, phishing scams cost investors more than $750 million in the third quarter of 2024 alone. With these increasing in complexity, it becomes clear that the crypto sphere needs more robust security measures than ever before.
The GIGA heist therefore should be a lesson for investors to ensure that they practice appropriately better cybersecurity measures. As digital assets gain more popularity, it has now become crucial to defend against the new age risks that are developing to threaten the entire Cryptocurrency community.
