"Falling into the trap" of hackers, many people lost all their cryptocurrency

The interface of a cryptocurrency wallet. Photo: Luu Quy

"That day when I opened my wallet, I was surprised to see a strange number of tokens worth nearly 10,000 USD. Thinking that someone had given it to me, I tried to swap it to another more popular cryptocurrency," Tho said. To exchange these tokens, he had to use the developer's exchange and grant permission for the exchange to connect to the wallet. However, the swap transaction then failed. Not only could he not exchange them, but all the coins previously in his wallet also disappeared.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Hop, who lives in Binh Phuoc, has just started playing with coins, and has lost more than 2.3 thousand USD worth of cryptocurrency. The reason was that he carelessly revealed a photo containing a secret recovery code. Instead of saving it on paper as instructed, he took a photo of the code and saved it on his personal Facebook in private mode. However, after accidentally getting his Facebook hacked, his cryptocurrency account was also taken over.

The wallet that Mr. Hop uses is MetaMask. When creating an account, the wallet provides a string of 12 English words, called a "secret recovery phrase". With this string, users can log in on any device and change their password. MetaMask also recommends that users write down the 12 words on paper and store them offline.

"I was subjective so I took a photo to quickly and also to be able to review it when needed without thinking about the situation of having my account taken over like that," Mr. Hop said. "A day after Facebook was hacked, my cryptocurrency account also went to 0. All the coins I was holding were transferred to another wallet and there was no way to get them back."

Due to the anonymous nature of cryptocurrency, Mr. Hop and Mr. Tho both could not know who their cryptocurrency was transferred to and had to accept the loss.

In cryptocurrency groups in Vietnam, in the past few months, many people have also reported losing cryptocurrency in their wallets. "Every month, dozens of people message me asking how to get back the money lost in their wallets. However, this is almost impossible," said Duc Dat, administrator of a cryptocurrency group.

According to Mr. Dat, in most cases, in addition to the bad guys creating sophisticated tricks to deceive victims, the problem also comes from the carelessness of the owner. For example, in Mr. Tho's case, this expert believes that users thought about immediate benefits and forgot the necessary protection steps when trading on a decentralized exchange (DeFi).

"Most wallets warn or ask before users want to connect to a DeFi exchange. In addition, some wallets also have a feature to limit the transaction amount. However, many people ignore these steps and agree to let the exchange access the entire amount," said Mr. Dat.

According to this expert, a series of cryptocurrency projects have appeared recently, and many scams have also flourished. Bad guys often create fake project websites, or give away high-value tokens to lure users to connect to their wallets. "Many people do not research carefully, or their ability to read and understand English is limited, so they unintentionally create conditions for bad guys to take advantage of and take over accounts," he commented.

Not only in Vietnam, this situation also happens all over the world. On November 17, user Imadade said he lost about $190,000 worth of Ethereum after mistakenly accessing the "MaskMeta" website advertised on Google, impersonating the MetaMask wallet. Thinking it was a real wallet, he entered the login code, then the thief took over his wallet and took all the money inside. On the support page for wallet services such as Trust Wallet, MetaMask, there are hundreds of complaints about losing money in wallets recently.

According to security experts, cryptocurrency owners are increasingly becoming targets of many fraudulent organizations, while cryptocurrency transactions are not yet recognized and protected in Vietnam. To avoid becoming victims, users should note that they should only visit the websites of wallets or projects that have been recognized. They should also create multiple wallets for different purposes, such as storage, trading, participating in receiving gifts, etc., and not use "cracking" software to avoid being infected with malware that steals cryptocurrency.

According to VnExpress