On Saturday, blockchain forensics company Match Systems said they had found and returned $68 million worth of stolen cryptocurrency. The theft, which was called a “dust attack,” happened on May 3. The victim got the funds back with the help of Match Systems in the UAE and the bitcoin exchange Cryptex.net.
A crypto whale fell victim to a “address poisoning” attack, which led to the theft of 1,155.28 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), which was worth an incredible $69.3 million at the time.
The victim’s first efforts to get in touch with the attacker, such as offering a 10% reward, were met with silence. But on May 9, the attacker contacted the victim through Telegram, which was a surprise.
The victim asked Andrei Kutin, CEO of Match Systems, for help finding the funds and getting it back. The investigation found a complicated web of deals that were meant to hide where the stolen goods came from. Even so, Match Systems’ agents carefully followed the funds and got close to the people who did it.
Match Systems Recovers
Even though the full recovery process has not been made public, the attacker’s quick change in behavior, from ignoring attempts to contact them to actively looking for them, has the crypto community interested.
Match Systems said that after a week-long search, they were able to recover and return the stolen funds to their legal owner, even though the value of the funds had gone down a little because the attacker had changed it from Bitcoin to Ether (ETH).
Address poisoning, a trick that uses real wallet names to steal funds, is a major threat to users’ financial safety. Match Systems tells victims that they should report such events right away to improve their chances of getting better.
They think there is a 70% chance of healing if it is reported within the first hour. That chance drops to 60% after four hours and to 50% after 24 hours. If you report it a month later, the chance of healing dropping to 20%.
