A scammer reportedly lost $4.8M of stolen money after storing the funds on tampered Ledgers. Bitcoin and Ether ETFs launch trading in Thailand and South Korea blocks 27 exchanges.
Ledger was forced to suspend its reseller network across South East Asia this week, after thieves stole more than $103.4 million from 530 addresses via tampered Ledgers inserted into the supply chain. But in a small measure of poetic justice, one of the “victims” was a scammer themselves according to Chainalysis.
The blockchain monitoring firm reports that the scammer lost 60 Bitcoin, worth about $4.8 million, from three newly purchased Ledgers containing spyware that records seed phrases. The Ledger thieves drained all three of their funds into the same wallet.
In a further irony, the scammer had operated a “task scam” where people were paid to fake sales and reviews of real items. So depending on how much they knew, their victims in turn may not have been entirely honest either. “Then a “negative balance” appeared, and they were told to add their own money in order to get paid,” Chainalysis reports. So it’s possible that a scammer of scammers has just got scammed. In crypto it’s sometimes turtles all the way down.
Despite reports of tampered Ledgers showing up in Europe forcing electronics retailer MediaMarkt to suspend sales, Ledger insists that all of the confirmed thefts to date are from Asia. It has asked resellers in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Hong Kong to remove Ledgers from sale. Trezor too, has decided to shutter some of the more far flung resellers in its network from Jan.1, as it can’t guarantee it can perform the same level of vigilance as it performs on resellers closer to home. There are no reports of tampered Trezors however.
In the midst of the worst hardware wallet scandal since the Coldcard seed phrase debacle at the end of July, Ledger decided it was the ideal moment to launch its latest device. Called Atom, the $849 device combines a crypto wallet with Android apps, which are kept separated from sensitive wallet operations. The device includes protections Ledger says would block the implants used in the Asian thefts and claims it can detect tampering even when switched off.
A first look at Ledger Atom. Source: Ledger
South Korean authorities have approved measures to block domestic access to 27 websites operated by unregistered crypto exchanges and other virtual asset service providers, including KuCoin, MEXC, Phemex and Bitrue.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) said in a statement: “With this decision, blocking measures against illegal virtual asset operators will also apply to internet websites, following apps such as those on Apple and Google,” the FIU said, according to a translation.
The list also includes CoinW, BTCC, BitMart, BingX, DigiFinex and others.
South Korea will tighten cybersecurity requirements for financial institutions after an investigation into earlier security incidents involving 16 companies including crypto exchanges found some big holes.
The Financial Services Commission said it would pursue improved threat monitoring, more frequent security assessments and stronger accountability for executives after an industry-wide review found cybersecurity deficiencies at 130 of 555 financial companies.
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