30s Summary

Scammers are pretending to be crypto wallet company, Ledger, in order to trick users into giving them access to their wallets. A fake email is sent through an email marketing platform claiming Ledger has suffered a data breach and asking users to verify their device. Once users enter their seed phrases, scammers can control their wallets and steal funds. Ledger has warned users of the scam, noting it will never ask for seed phrases. Last month, scammers took $484,000 from users via a loophole in Ledger’s connector library. Cybercrime experts have predicted an increase in phishing scams over the holiday season.

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Hey, all you enthusiastic crypto fans, we’ve got something for you. People are saying that some crafty scammers are pretending to be Ledger, (you know, that company that makes those cool crypto hardware wallets). These guys are faking Ledger’s support emails to trap you into giving them your wallet keys. Yikes!

The fake email is armed with some pretty convincing lines, engineered to make you believe Ledger is going through a recent “data breach”. It presses you to validate your private seed phrase, pretending to be all concerned about your assets. Man, talk about shady tactics!

But check this out; it looks totally real, like it’s sent from a legit Ledger support email. The trick is, it’s been sent through an email marketing platform. Once you click on the email, it sends you to a site that looks so much like Ledger’s website.

This fake Ledger site asks you to “verify your Ledger”, it’s just a trap to check if your device has any cracks, but it’s all fake. They’ll hook you with a popup asking you to enter your seed phrase. The risk? Once you give them that, these cheats get full control over your wallet. That means they’ll just take away whatever funds you have in it.

One worried user flagged this to Ledger on X. They hit back saying something along the lines of this being one of those unfortunate realities of online life. No one is 100% safe, right? They assure us that Ledger will never contact you asking for your 24-word recovery phrase. If anyone does, heads-up guys, it’s a scam.

The puzzler is if any Ledger users have actually fallen for this scam. We got in touch with the folks at Ledger, but nothing yet. This looks like history repeating itself, folks. On Dec. 13, another Ledger user claimed to have lost a whopping $2.5 million worth of Bitcoin and non-fungible tokens without ever revealing their seed phrase online. We think it’s a phishing scam, what do you reckon?

Despite this, Ledger and other blockchain security firms are insistent that the user got pulled into a phishing scam and that’s why their funds drained off.

There’s more. Ledger’s connector library had a loophole in Dec. That library gives Ledger users a chance to use decentralized finance apps. A savvy crook used this loophole and got away with $484,000 from users. Talk about a bad day!

Experts are predicting a rise in phishing scams this holiday season, thanks to a likely increase in online transactions. The world’s famous social media giant, Meta, is also on its toes, warning its users to beware of scam campaigns aimed at holiday shoppers. Scammers could use everything from fake Christmas gift box promotions to counterfeit retail coupons.

After a 53% drop in phishing scams last month to $9.3 million, crypto scammers could be up to some nasty tricks this festive season. Stay alert, folks!