Shashwat Mishra – Mumbai Uncensored, 24th January 2022
Leading cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com backed by superstar actor Matt Damon, admitted via a post on social media that the accounts of 483 of its users have been “compromised” which has led to unauthorized withdrawals worth $35million of Bitcoins and Ether. CEO Kris Marszalek was forced to issue a formal statement on social media following the said hack. He wrote, “On 17 January 2022, Crypto.com learned that a small number of users had unauthorized crypto withdrawals on their accounts,” “Crypto.com promptly suspended withdrawals for all tokens to initiate an investigation and worked around the clock to address the issue. No customers experienced a loss of funds. In the majority of cases we prevented the unauthorized withdrawal, and in all other cases customers were fully reimbursed.”
It is learned that the major reason for the hack was the transactions of aggrieved users were approved without the second factor of authentication (two factor (2FA) authentication an additional one-time code entered after the password allowing access to the account) entered by the user. “While we are reminded of the existence of bad actors intent on committing fraud, this new Worldwide Account Protection Program, along with our new MFA [multi-factor authentication] infrastructure, gives our users unprecedented protection of their funds, and hopefully, peace of mind,” said Kris Marszalek.
As cryptocurrency exchange platforms continue to grow across jurisdictions around the world the concern of cyber fraud and cryptocurrency hack is a major challenge for the regulators to deal with. These instances lead to uncertainties in the mind of crypto investors and traders.
