FTX claims portal back online; Mark Cuban's phishing attack could have been way worse

• FTX claims portal has resumed operation after accounts were affected by a cybersecurity incident in August.
• The attack targeted Kroll, the third-party agent leading the creditor claims for the FTX bankruptcy.
• No FTX accounts were affected by the incident and freezing was done merely for precaution.
• Meanwhile, an Arkham report shows that phishing attack on Mark Cuban's wallet could have been way worse. 

FTX exchange brought in Kroll, a cybersecurity agent to lead the process of making the firm’s creditors whole again. However, on August 19, the firm was victim to a “SIM swapping” attack. Specifically, the exploiter sophisticatedly targeted a T-Mobile US., Inc. account belonging to a Kroll employee, gaining access to files that contained private user data about the creditors from BlockFi, FTX, and Genesis. This led Kroll to freeze all user accounts that the attack affected while acknowledging that “no FTX passwords or KYC information were exposed in the breach.”

Also Read: Bankrupt FTX to pay creditors in dollars as it plans to liquidate $3 billion in crypto

FTX claims portal back online

In a recent update, the FTX exchange has announced that the claims portal is back online, after a thorough review and assessment of the Kroll cybersecurity incident. Similarly, the previously frozen accounts, whose data, including personal phone numbers, had been accessed by the exploiter, have been unfrozen.

The announcement is therefore a call to action for claimants to resume activities on the platform. Further, the exchange articulates having put in place “additional security measures on the claims portal to prevent similar attacks in future.

Recently, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) warned users of phishing attacks, spreading awareness, with the FXStreet team explaining, “Phishing is a type of cryptocurrency scam where victims give their private keys or other personal information. The attacker gains the trust of the victim through a misspelling in a URL or a link to click, in a phishing email.”

It comes as phishing attacks become prevalent in the crypto scene, with Mark Cuban being the latest victim, as reported, where the billionaire lost up to $870,000 in the attack. Based on the report, Cuban’s MetaMask wallet was drained of ETH, MATIC, USDT, and a few other tokens in under five minutes.

An Arkham report detailed the exploitation, showing that “the damage could have been MUCH worse,” considering Cuban had approximately $2.5M USDC on Polygon, in the same wallet.

In his cautionary post, CZ articulated that while the fight against phishing attacks continues, users should avoid clicking on links in emails about security incidents. He also explained how navigating to the webpage after checking the spelling and looking out for a https at the beginning of the URL, could help identify such swindles.

Further, CZ explained the need to keep one’s private keys and passwords private. Crypto traders could survive such vulnerabilities by avoiding sharing personal information via email.