A crypto trader has revealed that he lost a whopping $6,50,000 (Rs 4.97 crore) after scammers hacked his iCloud account. And all it took was two seconds.
The trader Domenic Lacovone revealed the scam on Twitter. He said it all began with a phone call he thought was from Apple.
Lacovone suspected it might be fraud so he ignored it. But it turned out to be an Apple number so he decided to call it back.
This is how it happened, Got a phone call from apple, literally from apple (on my caller Id) Called it back because I suspected fraud and it was an apple number. So I believed them
They asked for a code that was sent to my phone and 2 seconds later my entire MetaMask was wiped“This is how it happened, Got a phone call from apple, literally from apple (on my caller Id) Called it back because I suspected fraud and it was an apple number. So I believed them,” Lacovone said in a tweet.
“They asked for a code that was sent to my phone and 2 seconds later my entire MetaMask was wiped,” he added.
It was literally apple inc. they mirrored apples number pic.twitter.com/l08UjNj7aS
The trader had a load of valuable cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) saved in digital wallet app MetaMask.
He was not aware that MetaMask stores a 12-digit “seed phrase' file on iCloud automatically from his iPhone. As soon as the scammers got access to his iCloud, they swiped it and emptied Lacovone's account.
The seed phrase is important to get into the crypto wallet and must not be shared with anyone.
Lacovone has sought help from the online community and has even offered a $100,000 reward for those who can help him recover the money.
“Don't tell us to never store our seed phrase digitally and then do it behind our backs. If 90 percent of the people knew this I would bet none of them would have the app or iCloud on,” he was quoted as saying by the New York Post.
He has also been targeting MetaMask, asking users to “expose” the company.
MetaMask has so far not commented on the incident but did tweet out advice to users amid the fury. The tweet says that iCloud backup will include users' password-encrypted MetaMask vault and asked it can be disabled by disabling iCloud backups.
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