More than 5,000 ETH has been stolen from the MetaMask wallets of long-time cryptocurrency users across multiple chains since December 2022, a MetaMask developer has revealed.
At the time of writing, the stolen ether is valued at $10.5 million. The ongoing attack specifically targets seasoned users who are considered reasonably secure, but it remains uncertain how the sophisticated hacker is executing the thefts.
Tay stated on Twitter, “This is NOT a low-brow phishing site or a random scammer… It ONLY [steals from] OGs.”
The MetaMask developer speculates that the hacker obtains a data cache from the victim’s device, saying, “My best guess… is that someone has got themselves a fatty cache of data from [over a year ago] and is methodically draining the keys as they parse them from the treasure trove.”
While information about the hacker’s techniques remains vague, all victims share a common characteristic: their wallet keys were created between 2014 and 2022.
According to Tay, after the initial heist, the hacker will carry out a secondary theft within hours to collect assets and dust they initially overlooked.
Significant thefts involve swapping assets for ether within the victims’ wallets and then converting it into bitcoin using a centralized swapper. A week later, the bitcoin is laundered through a crypto mixer, making it difficult to trace.
Tay has advised MetaMask users to distribute their crypto across multiple keys to further protect their assets.
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