6 months ago
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Layerswap, a platform facilitating transactions between centralized cryptocurrency exchanges and layer-2 blockchains, has regained control over its domain after it was briefly hijacked, leading to the loss of approximately $100,000 from users.
The security breach occurred on March 20 at 19:40 UTC, when the layerswap.io domain was taken over, redirecting users to a phishing site. Shortly after the domain compromise, the attacker also attempted to reset Layerswap’s social media account on platform X, effectively locking out the company.
🛠 Layerswap March 20 incident
On March 20th, around 7:40 PM UTC, the @GoDaddy account for our https://t.co/xGoN2q5vOa domain was compromised, and we're currently awaiting a comprehensive report from GoDaddy to understand the breach's specifics. Meanwhile, here's some context…
According to Layerswap, GoDaddy’s slow response allowed the hacker to maintain control of the domain for a longer period of time. Around 23:07 UTC, LayerSwap recovered access to their GoDaddy account and undid the hacker’s changes. The business stated:
“In pursuit of understanding how the breach occurred, we engaged with GoDaddy support for explanations but were left without concrete answers. We agreed to receive a detailed report via email, which we plan to share with our community for transparency.”
The sophisticated Layerswap phishing scheme was able to drain around $100,000 in cryptocurrency holdings from approximately 50 individuals. The company intends to fully repay the impacted users and offer an additional 10% as compensation for the inconvenience.
The company advised investors to revoke their token authorizations as a precautionary measure to prevent further losses and has initiated the refund process for those impacted.
On March 20, hardware wallet provider Trezor was also targeted in a sophisticated cyberattack, resulting in the loss of at least $8,100. Cybercriminals sent out deceitful messages about a non-existent “$TRZR” token presale on the Solana Network, directing Trezor’s followers to fraudulent websites equipped to drain wallets.
Amid these security breaches, the United Nations Security Council released a report highlighting North Korea’s increasing involvement in cyberattacks, which are now a major source of its foreign currency earnings. The report estimates that North Korea has garnered almost $3 billion through cyber heists, underscoring the vulnerabilities present in the cryptocurrency sector’s security measures.
