My friend got hacked more than $2000 while I was watching his screen on Discord. It all happened in 1 sec. as we watched all his coins evaporate, literally, I was in shock... I couldn't believe it.
I'm going to tell you:
- How it happened
- How I found out how he was hacked
- Who exactly is the hacker
- How you can prevent this from happening
If you'd like to watch instead of read, check the video below:
How it happened
He was asking me for help because he couldn't find the seed phrase, however he still had access to his account through Metamask on his phone.
However, the coin he had was not appearing on Metamask so I tell him look, go to Road2Crypto, check if you have your coins there and if so just import the contract address to Metamask.
He didn't know how to do this, so I started digging around but it took me long enough before he found his seed phrase and this is when it gets interesting.
He tells me he found it and while I was still looking for his coin smart contract he goes to Polygon website and tries to restore Metamask using the seed phrase and tells me that it keeps telling him that the password is incorrect.
How I found out he was hacked
So, I google the polygon website and try to use my metamask and find something interesting by looking at my screen and his ... The website he was trying to access (which he had saved in favorites and has been going all this time) was a fake website with an identical design as the original.
Who is the hacker
Here's the phishing hacker website:
https://wallet-palygons.technology/
and this is his/her wallet: 0xFbFe9ab8af90118974653E8780b003bC0FaCEe0c
and here's the safe, original, official website:
https://wallet.polygon.technology/
As you can see the only difference is a - and a . 🤯 It would confuse anyone. However the key difference is that the hacker is asking for a Seed phrase which a real official website would never do.
The phishing is not only for Metamask, but also for Coinbase wallet and more. Here's a picture of the hacker asking for the seed phrase:
Here's how the safe official website looks:
How you can prevent this from happening
- Never ever share with anyone your Seed phrase or Private key
- Don't download pirate stuff as they may contain hidden exploits
- Try don't over download browser extensions as most of them are able to read everything on your browser.
- If you want to check the balance of your crypto, use a portfolio tracker such as Road2Crypto that only asks for your Public address which is safe to use.
