Attention! Questionnaire: Credentials Theft and Arbitrage Fraud Victims

image.png

The plan is to get to the bottom of two prominent external Hive-related cyber attacks in the near term: the credentials theft attack that drains wallets and the arbitrage fraud that tricks and steals funds. Thousands of people were affected by these combined. Since there's no point in making two posts to gather info, this one here will suffice. Those who already provided info via other means are welcome to re-share it.

Please answer the questions from the section that pertain to you. Others are asked to please avoid commenting.

Credentials Theft

Well over 5,000 Hive accounts had their funds stolen over the years and sent to 'collector' accounts which then sell on various exchanges. There are many such collector accounts, but the criminal is one and the same. The criminal moves from one account to another to avoid detection. It is believed that the criminal purchases databases of leaked social media and Google credentials and then data mines them for keys.

The keys we are talking about are Active keys or higher. Not your posting key. If you were the owner of multiple accounts that were all drained the same way, your input is particularly valuable.

  • When was your account compromised?
  • Do you have a link to the stolen funds transaction?
  • Were your keys changed?
  • Did you save your keys on paper, in a text document, or on the device in any way?
  • Do you use Hive Keychain or HiveSigner the most?
  • What type of device do you use for Hive?
  • Does your device have automatic backup features? Does it back up your work to the cloud?
  • Do you have your keys saved anywhere?
  • What social media programs do you have on the same device that holds your Active key?
  • Do you ever use Google Docs for storage?
  • Do you still have access to the same device you were using when you were hacked? Can you take screenshots of your installed apps list on it? (post screenshots)
  • Do you remember what you were doing around the time you were hacked?
  • Have you ever sent or received your keys in email or in a social media app?
  • Do you use any sort of a firewall or even adblock on your devices?
  • Do you copy/paste keys or do you type them in?
  • Did you change your keys after the incident?

Please answer the questionnaire to the best of your ability and recollection.

Arbitrage Fraud

Did you lose your funds to a scammer who told you that you can make money doing 'arbitrage'?

Many Russian-speakers have come to the official Hive social channels over the years looking for a resolution for what is known as an 'arbitrage' fraud or scam. The scam works like this: the victim is told that they can make money doing arbitrage between chains or currencies. They must send a small amount to a specified address and they will get more back. They do this a few times with small amounts. Then they are told to send a large amount and of course that is stolen. The criminal makes fake exchange accounts that look legitimate.

  • Can you tell me in your own words what happened?
  • Where did you first see this 'opportunity'?
  • Did someone talk to you or did you follow instructions on social media?
  • Can you tell me which social media profiles shared this?
  • Do you have any screenshots?
  • Did anyone chat with you on Telegram or Whatsapp? What did they say?
  • Did anyone call you? What did they say?
  • Did they ever ask you for your personal information?
  • Do you have the transactions and can you share them?
  • Did anyone ever ask you to download anything?
  • Did they ever email you anything?
  • Did you understand what Hive was when you first discovered this 'opportunity'?
  • How many transactions did you submit successfully before the funds were stolen?
  • What was the excuse used?
  • Did the criminals ever use any language except Russian?
  • Did the criminals ever reveal any contact information for themselves?
  • Is there anything important that do you think would help us with the investigation that you can share?
  • Have yourself or anyone in your family been contacted by these criminals after the funds were stolen?
  • Did you open a Ticket with your sending exchange?

Please answer the questionnaire to the best of your ability and recollection.

H2
H3
H4
3 columns
2 columns
1 column
23 Comments