By Tobi LobaEric Savics, the host of Protocol Podcast has reportedly lost all his 7 years Bitcoin (BTC) savings in a phishing attack that played out after downloading a counterfeit version of the Keepkey Bitcoin wallet.
The sum of Bitcoin (BTC) lost in the phishing attack was 12 BTC worth relatively $113,000. Eric Savics shared this predicament a few hours ago with crypto community members, seeking for a possible way out.
He indeed reached out for help from the community members, but unfortunately, such a loss is usually irreversible.
Eric Savics shared this, “I had all of my Bitcoin stolen from me in a hardware wallet phishing scam. Has anyone ever successfully retrieved stolen Bitcoin? Any help or guidance would be appreciated.”
https://twitter.com/ericsavics1/status/1271446842979409920
In response to his outcry on Twitter, Jameson Lopp, the CTO of Casa that has a deep understanding in software security, wrote, “Sorry for your loss; never enter a seed phrase into a computer.”
How the Unfortunate Incident Occurred
The Protocol Podcast host, Eric Savics, who had spent seven years in building up his Bitcoin stash, had utilized KeepKey Bitcoin client on his desktop and decided to download its corresponding app.
After downloading the application from the Google Chrome store and entered his recovery phrase, he lost all his Bitcoin (BTC) holdings in a very short interval.
Tuur Demeester, an influential personality in the crypto space, also sympathized with Eric by sharing his experience:
“Oh man… I’m so sorry Eric. From my experience once the recovery key has been taken, there’s not much you can do except for working with law enforcement. Perhaps forensics can be done on the plugin. I’d definitely contact keep key to ask of they know of other victims.”
A couple of days ago, the cryptocurrency exchange, ShapeShift that operates the KeepKey wallet, warned that there are fake KeepKey apps in the Google Chrome store.
“We will never ask you for your 12 word seed phrase, if anyone does that is a scam. Phishing attempts, such as these fake wallet apps, can lead to users losing their crypto,” ShapeShift warned.