On Friday, September 15, renowned crypto mogul Mark Cuban fell victim to a phishing attack that resulted in the loss of a substantial amount of assets. Reports indicated that hackers drained assets with $87000 from Cuban’s hot wallet.
The incident was first discovered by Wazz, an blockchain analsyt. In the report, the Wazz team noted susceptible transactions on Cuban’s wallets, which have been inactive for around five months. The Wazz team shared a couple of screenshots portraying suspicious Ethereum transactions on X account.
Mark Cuban Account Hacked
A review of the transaction history on Etherscan demonstrated that hackers withdrew the assets in batches. In less than 10 minutes, the hackers have transferred measurable amounts of assets in USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT), SuperRare, Ethereum Name Service tokens, and Lido Staked Ether (stETH) to different addresses.
In a subsequent transaction, a withdrawal of USDC worth $2 million was made on Cuban wallet. The Wazz team noted that the $2 million was transferred to a different wallet. The multiple funds’ transfers from Cuban wallets created concerns among the blockchain sleuth.
Reportedly, after observing the transaction activities on the Cuban wallet, the Wazz team promptly reported the matter. Hours after the incident, Cuban made a public address on DL News explaining the nature and the damage of the phishing attack.
The executive admitted to having joined MetaMask a few months ago. Cuban lamented that the attacker could have monitored his transaction activities for months before the exploit. The 65-year-old crypto investor admitted to having transferred USDC worth $2 million to a Coinbase custody wallet on Friday when the incident occurred.
Impact of Phishing Attack
Even though the crypto mogul failed to point out the nature of the hacking activity, it seemed that he contributed to the exploit by downloading a fake link associated with the MetaMask wallet. A couple of weeks ago, Cuban confessed of contacting the Circle team when he downloaded a fake MetaMask application.
Market critics updated on X account the possibility of Cuban clicking on a suspicious link. On the X thread, some crypto enthusiasts argued that Cuban logged in a malicious transaction that resulted in the attack. In addition, the other X users claimed that the hackers had gained unauthorized access to Cuban private keys.
However, the hackers have been preying on compromising Cuban accounts for several years. In 2021, the attackers launched a rug pull on the Cuban account, resulting in the loss of measurable assets.
The Dallas Maverick boss confessed that the attackers compromised his account immediately when he was cleaning up his mobile phone. Cuban confirmed to move the remaining asset to Polygon after the incident.
For years, Cuban has portrayed a growing interest in cryptocurrency including nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and blockchain technology. Cuban told the DL News that that blockchain was entirely 100% public.
