Hackers Steal $100,000 Worth of BTC From Engineering Manager at BitGo
Engineering manager at cryptocurrency custodian BitGo, Sean Coonce, announced that he fell victim to a SIM swapping hack.
According to the post, Coonce had over $100,000 siphoned out of his account on cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in under 24 hours.
In his post, Coone details SIM swapping, a practice that sees the attacker maliciously requesting a telecommunications carrier to redirect the traffic of a mobile phone number to a device over which they have control. This device is then used to obtain two-factor-authentication (2FA) codes which grant control over the victim’s online account.
After describing how it happened, Coone noted his recommendations to prevent such attacks, including using a hardware wallet to secure personal cryptocurrency holdings and using a YubiKey for 2FA. In cases in which a YubiKey is not supported, he recommends using Google Voice 2FA.
He also suggests using a password manager and reducing a user’s personal online footprint by publicly sharing less personal information online. He stated that he “can’t stop thinking about the small, easy things I could have done to protect myself along the way,”. He added:
“Given my naive security practices, I probably deserved to get hacked.”