I've Been Hacked - lost $1321 in Cryptocurrency - 28 May 2018
Today started like any other day, Monday morning checking emails, going about my work and then suddenly an email popped up. An email that no cryptocurrency hodlr would ever want to see, my cryptocurrency was being withdrawn from my account on a certain exchange without my knowledge.
I immediately dropped what I was doing and logged in frantically to try and change my password but by the time I got to my account, it was already emptied out. I then began to email and Facebook message the exchange to see if there was anything they could do.
While I was waiting for them I took the public addresses used and reviewed them on the block explorer and once I saw those confirmations. It hit me!
What was stolen
How the hacker got a hold of the exchanges I use, my email and password I don't know. Maybe a phishing it somehow, I cannot be sure! Besides having my email and password the account in question did not have 2FA activated as there was a technical issue with my account and I kept giving me invalid token when I tried to register 2FA.
I've spoken to the support team and they've still not come back with an answer to why 2FA is not available on my account.
Anyway, the account they got access to had the following sitting in it
- SIA (SC) - 34 790
- Verge (XVG) - 5848
- Ripple (XRP) - 1042
- Stellar Lumens (XLM) - 102
Sliding into my account
The hacker first went after my Ripple and transferred that to Bitrexx which you can see from the block explorer here
They were able to get 1041 XRP @ 603.78USD
Time - 2018-05-28 11:35
The hacker then proceeded to exchange my SIA, Verge and Stellar Lumens on the exchange for Bitcoin and was able to transfer 0.09946608 BTC @ 717.61 USD
Time 2018-05-28 T 11:54:21Z
The hacker sent the stolen cryptocurrency to this address: 1JKYfodGqpxWpLaMbfdTsq4gJ1rV8tnZgn
You can view it on the block explorer here
That's a total of $1321,39 and a sobering slap in the face
The bright side
Luckily that was the only cryptocurrency I kept on that exchange and the rest sits in wallets so I wasn't completely cleaned out! I've since updated all my passwords for email, exchanges and made sure 2FA is activated on all accounts.
Staying bullish
This may be an expensive lesson but hopefully, my experience can help others safeguard their funds. You clearly cannot be too careful when it comes to cryptocurrency. This won't stop me from investing in cryptocurrency in fact i'm more bullish than ever hoping to recoup the shortfall with what I have left and hopefully picking up new positions before we get our next bull run.
Protect your assets
Remember to be safe if you're hodling and practice cryptocurrency safety protocal. Don't leave your crypto on exchanges if you can help it, make sure 2FA is active on all your accounts and never keep all your crypto in one place. Spread your holdings and protect against your downside.
Have your say?
Have you been hacked before? How much was stolen? Do you keep any of your crypto on exchanges?
Drop me a comment or donate an upvote or two help a brother cover this short fall :)
Connect with me
Follow me @chekohler
Coins mentioned in post:
feels bad man :(
Horrible feeling and really makes you question the things! Like yes I could have done more to protect my crypto that’s for sure but to think their are reallt people sitting around hacking people’s accounts for their crypto! That’s their day job! Hoping I can day trade my way back
Huge loss! But Thanks for the heads up and shring with us @chekohler! 2-factor authentification was rather easy to implement on most platforms!
Thanks @mimismartypants! Hopefully it helps someone and i spare more people the pain
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Sorry to hear about the hack.
Although you are probably super-pissed, I'm impressed by your positivity.
Let's hope you recoup your losses, and much more.
It’s a lesson and expensive lesson but one I learned from and hope others will learn from too and not make the same mistake I did! I can’t trust a website! I was pretty upset but there’s no point in it really since there’s not much you can do! Let’s hope so too, all about positive vibes going foward! Thanks for the comment!
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I have also been hacked before on an exchange.
Always store your cryptocurrency offline on a hardware wallet when you want to be 100% safe.
https://steemit.com/crypto/@niel96/fkxwctmxw
100% it was a hard lesson to learn but one I needed to learn and will never forget it
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