CZ Warns of New Hacker Trend Targeting Crypto Data Platforms

Binance’s former CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), has warned a few new wave of cyberattacks focusing on crypto information platforms.

This follows latest breaches at CoinMarketCap (CMC) and CoinTelegraph (CT) that uncovered customers to wallet-draining phishing schemes.

The CMC and CT Assaults

“Hackers are focusing on data web sites now. Watch out when authorizing pockets join,” CZ mentioned in a post on X. He identified that CMC was attacked simply two days earlier than CT was hit with an identical breach.

The difficulty started on June 21 when CMC customers began seeing a pop-up that mentioned “Confirm Pockets” and requested them to attach their crypto wallets. Members of the crypto neighborhood on X shortly flagged the notification as a phishing try designed to deceive victims into revealing personal keys or delicate data.

Shortly after the stories unfold on social media, the platform acknowledged the malicious notification on its account. “We’ve recognized and eliminated the malicious code from our web site,” CoinMarketCap mentioned in a Friday update. The group added that safety investigations have been underway and warned individuals to not join their wallets.

CZ later shared that early checks confirmed 39 people have been affected by the incident, with whole losses of round $18,570. CMC additionally revealed plans to reimburse these affected by the hack.

On June 23, Cointelegraph’s web site was additionally compromised in a front-end exploit. This time, customers noticed a pop-up selling a pretend token airdrop. The notification claimed individuals have been eligible to get 50,000 “CTG” tokens, price round $5,500 in the event that they linked their wallets. The pop-up additionally falsely claimed that CertiK, a widely known safety agency, had reviewed the sensible contract.

The media outlet confirmed the problem on Sunday evening and mentioned it was working to repair it. “Don’t click on on these pop-ups, join your wallets, or enter any private data,” it warned on X.

Blockchain Safety agency Rip-off Sniffer additionally found that the pretend JavaScript code got here from the corporate’s promoting system.

Hackers Are Shifting Ways

In each circumstances, the unhealthy actors have been in a position to approve transactions and steal crypto as soon as customers linked their wallets. These incidents present a brand new pattern the place attackers at the moment are utilizing trusted information and information platforms to succeed in individuals as a substitute of going after crypto exchanges instantly.

In the meantime, a latest research by TRM Labs showed that phishing schemes and malware-based infrastructure assaults made up 70% of the $2.2 billion stolen in crypto-related hacks in 2024.

One other report by Cybernews revealed an enormous information breach that uncovered over 16 billion login credentials, making it one of many largest stolen information collections ever discovered. Researchers imagine this got here from infostealer malware, credential stuffing, and previous leaks that have been repackaged.