TrustWallet Twitter Phishing Attack LouBapMarketing

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TrustWallet

Twitter user @dafimaniac0 reports that they lost $90,689.000248 USDT and $154,807.136786 USDC in a phishing attack with transactions appearing on July 19th, 2021. While the original tweets are long gone, the transactions remain permanently on the blockchain. It doesn't appear that any of their several tweets at the time received any response.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

About TrustWallet

"The most trusted & secure crypto wallet. Buy, store, collect NFTs, exchange & earn crypto. Join 25 million+ people using Trust Wallet."

"I got hacked (phishing ?) 250k few days ago FROM @AtomicWallet AND @TrustWalletApp and these are the transaction. [Can anyone] help me if I have chances to recover it? I'M DEVASTED." "Any tip what should I do?"

"It is not verified, not offical from @TrustWalletApp and they ask money. So probably is your the scammer. People report this NEHAR profile." "[Y]a [I] just figgered out that the 3 that are trying to Force me to click the link and give the seeds... are all trying to trick me.. 0 following 168 followers.. .. X 2 of them... man .... they are convincing."

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

Known history of when and how the service was started.
What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
How were people recruited to participate?
Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - TrustWallet Twitter Phishing Attack @dafimaniac0
Date	Event	Description
July 19th, 2021 1:44:06 AM	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost has been estimated at $245,000 USD.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

Prevention Policies

It appears that the wallet worked on the basis of requesting a seed phrase. When installing a new wallet, it is important to ensure that the wallet comes from an official source. As even official sources could be tampered with, it is best practice to use a wallet with a smaller amount of money initially, and to keep the majority of funds fully offline whenever possible. Using hardware wallets or multi-signature setups can further reduce the risk. With a hardware wallet, the seed phrase should only be entered in separate hardware, which is significantly more expensive and difficult to tamper with or forge. With a multi-signature setup, you can use a combination of different wallets that all must sign a transaction, meaning that all keys would need to be breached simultaneously to perform an attack.

Once an attack has happened, it is important that the wallet addresses get flagged as soon as possible, so funds can be returned if the thief decides to cash them out through a compliant exchange. Filing a police report is important as most exchanges will only freeze and return funds at the request of law enforcement.