In light of the most recent phishing attack, Sam Bankman-Fried, chief of FTX crypto exchange, has offered to help the victims. However, SBF has sternly advised users to take more precaution in the future and this is the last time the exchange will offer compensation.
Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic rise in crypto phishing attacks. This happens when someone sends an email with a malicious attachment. However, these attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated.
Recently, scammers have taken to impersonating the FTX website in order to intercept users’ login credentials and draining their accounts. The SBF team has been working around the clock to prevent this type of phishing, implementing security measures such as 2-factor authentication (2FA). Mr. Sam Bankman-Fried noted:
“We’ve mostly stamped out sites that try to phish users by masquerading as FTX. But we can’t fix fake sites impersonating *other* services. A few users accidentally registered at fake other sites, including 3 Commas.
They provided their FTX api keys to use the sites’ trading tools. Others users were probably phished through other methods. But one way or another, these users were exploited by third party attackers”.
The head of FTX said that people using fake versions of the site and entering their login information could be hazardous. This allows those illegitimate websites to access users’ FTX API keys. SBF said that right now, every cryptocurrency company is trying to address this problem on its own. However, he believes that this issue needs to be tackled by the entire industry collectively.
Although FTX has decided to compensate the affected users this time, it is unlikely that they will do so again in the future. SBF said:
We can’t compensate for users getting phished by fake versions of other companies in the space!
THIS IS A ONE-TIME THING AND WE WILL NOT DO THIS GOING FORWARD. THIS IS NOT A PRECEDENT. We will not making a habit of compensating for uses getting phished by fake versions of other companies!
In response to the recent phishing attack, FTX is offering $6 million in compensation to victims. If those who carried out the attack return 95% of what was stolen within 24 hours, FTX will drop any legal action against them.