Downloading a fake app can be very costly in the crypto ecosystem. Billionaire Mark Cuban has had a sad experience with this. Hackers managed to steal US$870,000 from his MetaMask wallet after he downloaded a corrupted version. This is the second time that Mark Cuban has lost significant funds. His carelessness and clumsiness are increasingly coming under fire.
Mark Cuban robbed of nearly $900,000
Influential players in the ecosystem continue to be the target of malicious individuals. After the founder of Ethereum and the CoinEx exchange, billionaire Mark Cuban has been targeted. Indeed, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks has declared to have lost $870,000 in a crypto hack.
According to the transaction history on Etherscan, a dozen cryptocurrencies were withdrawn from the billionaire’s MetaMask wallet in almost 10 minutes.
The infiltration of Mark Cuban‘s wallet was detected for the first time by the anonymous analyst Wazz Crypto. While the wallet had been inactive for more than 5 months, the successive withdrawals noted soon came to the attention of Wazz Crypto.
This intention was true, as the hack was eventually confirmed by the victim himself. Mark Cuban has taken steps to secure his remaining assets. One of these is to transfer the remaining assets to Coinbase.
This isn’t the first time Mark Cuban has lost funds in the crypto ecosystem. As a liquidity provider for Iron Finance’s TITAN stablecoin, Mark Cuban saw his investment melt away when the token’s price dropped to 0 in June 2021 despite the bullrun.
Attempting to blame the ecosystem’s lack of regulation, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell criticized the billionaire for his lack of attention. It was likely this same oversight that led to his second significant loss of funds.
Is the victim responsible for the hack?
It’s true that hot wallets such as Metamask are particularly vulnerable to hacking attacks because they are connected to the web browser. However, despite being the most popular crypto wallet, the fox-emblem wallet is often targeted for attacks. But, the hack suffered by Mark Cuban is probably the result of his fault and not of any security flaw.
Indeed, the hack seems to be linked to the fact that the victim downloaded a fake MetaMask application. Mark Cuban admits as much himself. While searching for Circle on Google, he came across MetaMask, which he unfortunately downloaded and activated. It was only after the hack that he finally realized that it wasn’t in fact an official version.
I’m pretty sure I downloaded a version of MetaMask containing crap.
Mark Cuban
These types of hacks are widespread in the crypto ecosystem. Many crooks have created fake extensions or applications before enticing users to connect to them. Once the private key or secret phrase has been inserted, the hackers then quietly empty the victim’s wallet.
Just like his investment in a token in 2021 without any research whatsoever, Mark Cuban was reckless in downloading a wallet without any care. As a billionaire, he is undoubtedly better prepared to withstand the financial losses imposed on him by this sloppiness. However, not all crypto users can recover from such a blow. For this reason, it’s important to educate oneself about security in the ecosystem. Our tips may be of use to you.
I dream of a world where every citizen has total control over themselves, including their finances. I believe that Bitcoin is one of the tools that will achieve this revolution. Since 2019, I am learning about this cryptocurrency and spreading the word around.
