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Topic: An investor lost $24 million worth of bitcoin (Read 1016 times)

legendary
Activity: 2534
Merit: 1338
December 01, 2019, 01:23:18 PM
This sucks, I see stories like this all the time on here. He really shouldn’t have been keeping that amount of crypto online though. It should be on paper wallets or a hardware wallet. Sad for him Sad
He learned his lesson tho.
Jokes aside, this is pain in the as@% for "old investors" used to stock market, banks and general no brain needed in terms of security.
Now when you are your own bank and YOU must handle all things that bank needs to handle so hacking, scams, not paying back loans etc etc it start to show human errors.

This is first in financial history that people need to gain big knowledge to invest/keep it safe.

This is not really the first time in history in which something like this has happened, in fact that is the reason banks exist at all, long time ago when people used gold those that had a lot of money were most of the time the targets of thieves and they had to find ways to secure their coins, this sounds familiar doesn't it? Eventually someone had an idea, to create a place where people could store their coins securely, it was a success, and then he began to use the money that he had in his vault to make loans creating what we know as a bank.
legendary
Activity: 2296
Merit: 1014
This sucks, I see stories like this all the time on here. He really shouldn’t have been keeping that amount of crypto online though. It should be on paper wallets or a hardware wallet. Sad for him Sad
He learned his lesson tho.
Jokes aside, this is pain in the as@% for "old investors" used to stock market, banks and general no brain needed in terms of security.
Now when you are your own bank and YOU must handle all things that bank needs to handle so hacking, scams, not paying back loans etc etc it start to show human errors.

This is first in financial history that people need to gain big knowledge to invest/keep it safe.
legendary
Activity: 2366
Merit: 1408
I remember this thread yesterday, another problem with sim swap atack, this time the victim was my stepfather
The people who did this stole a good amount of money in the bank, pay some bills, take the whatsapp of my stepfather and asks money to his friends

It's incredible how easy you can lose a lot of money with this problem, and for me the mobile company have total guilty in these cases, because the only possible way to change a number of sim, is being present at a store with your id to prove
full member
Activity: 560
Merit: 102
That's why it is important that we will tell this to people especially to our friends and relative to have extra precautions with this as they won't retrieve something that was hacked to them, so be very careful and always and be concern to other people, and if you are new and don't have any info, better to ask in forum or search for your safety..
Basically everything has its own risks. And the best thing that can be done is to understand the ecosystem to be able to take preventative measures. This precaution is useful to minimize the risk of loss, although there are still other risks that follow, at least we have tried. Because everywhere, there will always be "thieves".
In addition, we also have to prepare mentally and strategy, especially cryptocurrency full of mystery. Always remember, never invest money that you can't afford to lose.
sr. member
Activity: 770
Merit: 253
I always tell to my friends always make sure you are secured your computers, mobile phones and everything that is connected to something like money crypto
that will compromise it, having a authentication and other features to be able to relax everyday without having to think that is my phone secure my account secured?
those are the things that we should not want to happen to our life, having to wake up in the morning and realize its all gone, so please im begging you never ever
depend on one security always make sure there are one or more security features from any of those things

Based from my experience, you can't really tell them to completely stay anonymous and safe in cryptocurreny. Why? Because in cryptocurrency, there is allot of opportunities when you cosider yourself as a risk take, and being a risk taker involves you being able to try out new things. What we can just provide them that is considered effective is to separate their main account from accounts that could be use to experiement. In this regard, why don't they try to use offline hardware wallets to secure their funds.

That's why it is important that we will tell this to people especially to our friends and relative to have extra precautions with this as they won't retrieve something that was hacked to them, so be very careful and always and be concern to other people, and if you are new and don't have any info, better to ask in forum or search for your safety..
newbie
Activity: 44
Merit: 0


A Crypto investor Michael Terpin lost roughly 1,5oo bitcoins on January 7, 2018, after falling victim to a SIM swap attack, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The bitcoin stake was worth $24 million that day, roughly three weeks after the asset hit its record high price.
The incredibly precise hack involves thieves taking control of a phone number and using it to access email accounts, bank reserves, and even crypto wallets.
Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
One crypto investor lost bitcoin worth as much as $24 million after falling victim to a new kind of hack known as SIM swapping, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Michael Terpin was hit by the attack on January 7, 2018, days after bitcoin reached its record high price. Thieves stole roughly 1,500 bitcoins by taking control of his phone number and using Google's "Forgot password?" feature to gain access to his email. With possession of the two personal accounts, the thieves hacked Terpin's crypto wallet, stole the digital assets and quickly sold them, according to WSJ.
Bitcoin traded between $16,969 and $15,790 per coin on January 7, 2018. The digital coin now trades at roughly $8,700.

Source:
Wall Street journal


Commoooon!
sr. member
Activity: 1274
Merit: 278
I always tell to my friends always make sure you are secured your computers, mobile phones and everything that is connected to something like money crypto
that will compromise it, having a authentication and other features to be able to relax everyday without having to think that is my phone secure my account secured?
those are the things that we should not want to happen to our life, having to wake up in the morning and realize its all gone, so please im begging you never ever
depend on one security always make sure there are one or more security features from any of those things

Based from my experience, you can't really tell them to completely stay anonymous and safe in cryptocurreny. Why? Because in cryptocurrency, there is allot of opportunities when you cosider yourself as a risk take, and being a risk taker involves you being able to try out new things. What we can just provide them that is considered effective is to separate their main account from accounts that could be use to experiement. In this regard, why don't they try to use offline hardware wallets to secure their funds.
sr. member
Activity: 1106
Merit: 310
I always tell to my friends always make sure you are secured your computers, mobile phones and everything that is connected to something like money crypto
that will compromise it, having a authentication and other features to be able to relax everyday without having to think that is my phone secure my account secured?
those are the things that we should not want to happen to our life, having to wake up in the morning and realize its all gone, so please im begging you never ever
depend on one security always make sure there are one or more security features from any of those things
jr. member
Activity: 77
Merit: 1
I think this thing not be happened because if you hold a huge amount of Bitcoin you need to find some hardware wallet like trezor or anything like that, because at the first place you need to think about your security.
sr. member
Activity: 1638
Merit: 261
I am also sad to read this story hacking always happens in cryptocurrency a few months ago I also watched the news about a young man who managed to break into the American corporate network and hack it then asked for a ransom of bitcoin. cryptocurrency is very vulnerable to theft and hacking. therefore we always have to be careful when making crypto transactions and install security in our wallets using 2af. because hackers always have a way to break into our wallets.

Yes true that's really saddening and shows the vulnerability of crypto and wallets when it comes to security. These hackers are too cunning and ruthless they hacked my friend's wallet as well and got away with crypto worth $40,000 which literally made him broke. I think it's our responsibility as well to have security features enabled like 2FA and all.
sr. member
Activity: 938
Merit: 250
I am also sad to read this story hacking always happens in cryptocurrency a few months ago I also watched the news about a young man who managed to break into the American corporate network and hack it then asked for a ransom of bitcoin. cryptocurrency is very vulnerable to theft and hacking. therefore we always have to be careful when making crypto transactions and install security in our wallets using 2af. because hackers always have a way to break into our wallets.
donator
Activity: 1617
Merit: 1012
The OP is old news, but still I wish that companies would quickly move away from the stupid habit of using SMS or the user's mobile number as a means of implementing 2-factor authentication or otherwise verifying their identity. A system is as secure as the weakest link and mobile phone-based authentication is as weak as it gets. Phones can be lost, phones can be stolen, SIM cards can be swapped, phone company employees can be bribed, etc. Do you trust the safety and security of your multi-million dollar account to the integrity of some phone company associate?

Just do away with mobile phone-based verification already!
hero member
Activity: 2086
Merit: 501
★Bitvest.io★ Play Plinko or Invest!
We can’t really say how negligent the owner is since we are talking about $24 million worth of bitcoin then surely he had gone through possible security that he could muster in order to protect his assets but the thing is these criminals would always find a way and as the technology evolves then so as their methods. At this time, I think it would be smarter if we buy a cold wallet where details regarding that wallet along with the private keys should never been recorded kr transmitted digitally but rather a person should keep it physically and store it somewhere safe or if you can memorize it then why not but that would be too risky.
legendary
Activity: 2534
Merit: 1338
Omg, I know that I'm not a big target, but I think it's a good time for me to put 2-factor authentication.
These guys doing smarter hustles each day.
This is the right attitude, even if we do not have an amount of money that is anywhere close to the quantity in the title of this thread we need to take care of our money to the best of our abilities, while hackers are using the very same techniques that they employ to steal fiat from people we must remember that those that use fiat have the whole banking system behind them which protects them from them but in our case we only have ourselves to protect our coins.
legendary
Activity: 2828
Merit: 1515
Can you imagine for second being an investor losing 24 million dollars within a split second? That would make me want to give up on life. Stories like these are what scare away investors to Bitcoin who have no formal knowledge of cyber security. Securing Bitcoin is a hassle and knowing that at any moment, your entire investment worth millions could be gone at no particular fault of your own would scare the hell out of anyone even thinking about pouring their funds into crypto. These hacks are not going to stop and security can only do so much until a vulnerability is found and stealing Bitcoin from naive investors is only going to happen more when mainstream adoption happens. There probably needs to be more emphasis on physical storage in secure locations rather than phone/internet storage.
member
Activity: 434
Merit: 29


In my opinion lots of people lose their assets in such a silly to my mind way being too self-confident.  

$ 24,000,000.00   Is nothing compared to what you all are going to lose when the price of Bitcoin goes to its intrinsic value of near ZERO 🎈🎈🎈🎈     Given the price collapse we are seeing now, you guys are way to confident.   I think Bitcoin below 1,000.00 will take that confidence out of a bunch of you 🤣🤣🤣🤣


You can ignore reality, but you can not ignore the CONSEQUENCES of ignoring reality....  ( seeing our bitcoin becoming virtually worthless in this case )


Hard Facts
sr. member
Activity: 2254
Merit: 309
SOL.BIOKRIPT.COM
I can't give solution for bitcoin holder what have to do, by selling I think have lost much money because pride down but keep holding is not good solution with bitcoin price keep goes down, maybe close your phone or your computer and looking good viewer in your forest, nothing you can do with bitcoin price still down and re investing maybe will make bitcoin keep down.
legendary
Activity: 2296
Merit: 1014
And.. this is why you should keep your holdings in a hardware or paper wallet. Or even a software wallet if the wallet is not connected to the internet.
Seems simple? In a way, but its also problem for traders that NEED to keep funds online on exchange while trading then to wallet they can access quickly to send funds back to exchange. You can't play safe game then.
There are cases that involves higher risk.
full member
Activity: 840
Merit: 101


A Crypto investor Michael Terpin lost roughly 1,5oo bitcoins on January 7, 2018, after falling victim to a SIM swap attack, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The bitcoin stake was worth $24 million that day, roughly three weeks after the asset hit its record high price.
The incredibly precise hack involves thieves taking control of a phone number and using it to access email accounts, bank reserves, and even crypto wallets.
Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
One crypto investor lost bitcoin worth as much as $24 million after falling victim to a new kind of hack known as SIM swapping, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Michael Terpin was hit by the attack on January 7, 2018, days after bitcoin reached its record high price. Thieves stole roughly 1,500 bitcoins by taking control of his phone number and using Google's "Forgot password?" feature to gain access to his email. With possession of the two personal accounts, the thieves hacked Terpin's crypto wallet, stole the digital assets and quickly sold them, according to WSJ.
Bitcoin traded between $16,969 and $15,790 per coin on January 7, 2018. The digital coin now trades at roughly $8,700.

Source:
Wall Street journal

That's a lot and I think if he has $24 million worth of bitcoin, he must invest on his security as well instead of just landing it online. Must be a lesson for all of us here that other than buying things we want, let's focus on what we need first like having hardware wallet like ledgers. I'm pretty sure he let his guard down when it comes to security of his funds.
hero member
Activity: 2926
Merit: 657
No dream is too big and no dreamer is too small
Omg, I know that I'm not a big target, but I think it's a good time for me to put 2-factor authentication.
These guys doing smarter hustles each day.
That is our obligation to take care of our funds or otherwise, we are the next one to suffer such losses. This makes us think about how important to have 2FA authentication for additional security and make hackers not easily broke the keys.

But I can't imagine how this guy( as mentioned by OP) letting it happen to know that he can be a possible target for hackers cause of his position and the amounts that he has been holding. It was a bad experience and nobody wants it, and may others would take this seriously.
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