Trading Platform LocalBitcoins Gets Hacked, Faces Phishing Attack
It seems that one of the most challenging tasks in crypto space is to safeguard from hacks and fraudulent attacks. Many large sized popular crypto firms have been targeted by hackers to steal funds. This time it is a famous platform for peer to peer buying and selling, LocalBitcoins.
A LocalBitcoins community manager noted in a post that an anonymous hacker or hacker group discovered a security loophole in the LocalBitcoins forum. The hacker than linked it to a phishing forum. The company says that various quantities of users’ Bitcoin have been stolen because of the phishing scam. In the phishing attack, users were tricked to share their essential information. After getting the confidential details, the scammers could use the code to gain access and take away the cryptocurrency out of their accounts.
A LocalBitcoins user took Reddit to warn other users even before the official declaration, “When visiting the Localbitcoins forum […] users are prompted to log into their account, as if they have been logged out. This only seems to happen if you are already logged in. This is [SIC] a PHISHING SITE and 2FA codes are being used to empty customer accounts. Withdrawals have since been suspended by LocalBitcoins.”
The user went on to say that it is a quite sophisticated scam, which mimics the original page to a very high extent. This will give its user a fake sense of security. The post by the concerned user must have helped many other users. After this, the official announcement from LocalBitcoins came to say that the forum has been ‘temporarily disabled.’ The announcement also shows a URL to the LocalBitcoins Subreddit.
Meanwhile, many users shared their unfortunate experience. One such was stating, “Please get the address 13WaahhsiGph4ysmQtjVhVTdgQUSL62KJr blacklisted on exchanges.” One of the users faced a large loss of his initial investment in Bitcoin in the attack.
The hacked trading firm states that the found vulnerability was contained in third-party software. The firm acknowledged six cases of users facing losses. LocalBitcoins eventually managed to put an end on the attack. It has also resumed outgoing transactions (which were temporarily disabled).
