A task scammer was among the victims of last week's Ledger theft, according to Chainalysis. The scammer lost 60 bitcoins worth about $4.8 million that came from their own victims.
Chainalysis says one of the biggest victims of last week's Ledger theft was a scammer, who lost nearly $5 million in bitcoin. The firm wrote in a Thursday post that the crook lost 60 bitcoins worth about $4.8 million, stolen through a so-called task scam.
How the task scam worked
According to Chainalysis, the address was linked with a con where people were paid to fake sales and reviews of real items. Victims were told to add their own money to get paid, and were then stolen from.
The mastermind then moved the stolen money to Ledger addresses, and different scammers targeted those addresses last week. According to Chainalysis, the person behind the scam moved the proceeds into three separate Ledger addresses on Sep 22. Chainalysis said: "thieves emptied all three", with one transfer each into the same wallet.
What Ledger says about the attack
Paris-based Ledger said last week it had started an investigation after customers in South East Asia reported lost funds following purchases from Malaysia-based reseller CryptoBilis. Ledger has since said an organized crime operation installed implants into devices and put them back on the market. The implants could read users' seed phrases, which let criminals drain wallets.
Ledger has not yet revealed how much money was lost, but blockchain investigator Specter said $86 million had been drained. Ledger said it is working with law enforcement to follow the funds and dismantle the attackers' infrastructure, and that CryptoBilis has stopped selling Ledger products.
Hardware sellers targeted this year
Criminals have targeted bitcoin hardware sellers this year. In July, crooks were able to steal close to $120 million in bitcoin from Coldcard users because a firmware bug led to faulty seed generation, which allowed hackers to guess investors' seed phrases.
Source: Bitcoin Magazine
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