Terra Users Lost $4.3 Million in Cryptocurrency Due to Phishing Fraud

Written by C, Fiona

Last updated: 2022-04-22

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In the past week, the private key of a deceptive Google ad phishing has received millions of dollars from unsuspecting Terra users.

What Is Terra (LUNA)? | Binance Academy

SlowMist, a blockchain security company, has identified dozens of cryptocurrency addresses on Terra’s network since April 12, which appear to be victims of a phishing scam. It is reported that as of press time, the fraudster’s address has taken away $4.31 million in assets.

According to SlowMist’s explanation on twitter, between April 12 and April 21, $4.31 million of assets were maliciously transferred to suspects from 52 different addresses. The security team’s analysis determined that most attacks were carried out through Google phishing advertising.

Phishing advertisements are designed to entice victims to provide sensitive information / download malware, usually using fraudulent information.In this case, users seem to be cheated when searching for popular Terra projects, including Anchor protocol and Astroport.

Anchor is a decentralized financial agreement for trading and lending, while Astroport is an automated decentralized exchange.When searching for “anchor agreement” or “Astroport”, Google’s first result shows advertisements that look real, but they are actually scams. Once users actually visit their links, the domain name of each relevant website will change.

The following screen of each ad prompts users to connect to their wallet by providing their seed phrase.The seed phrase is a human readable form of private key that allows users to send funds from their associated blockchain address. In general, people should never share their private key with someone they don’t want to grant this permission to.

The SlowMist team now advises Terra users not to click on any Google Advertising links.On Sunday, metamask warned Apple users about phishing fraud after the integration of wallet and apple pay. With this, swindlers who Phish users’ icloud credentials may also steal their cryptocurrency funds.