iPhone iCloud exploit makes crypto dealer lose $650,000 INSTANTLY

Crypto is all the hype these days and so are cryptoscammers. In a recent incident, a scam involves cryptocurrencies, NFT, and an iPhone. Domenic Iacovone, a crypto trader, has shared how he lost his fortune due to an iCloud exploit. The scammers essentially used the exploit to fake the caller ID on the victim’s iPhone and once he got fooled, they got access to all of his MetaMask wallet full of crypto and NFTs.

Iacovone used to keep all his valuable NFTs in a digital wallet. The hackers used an iCloud hack to access his digital assets stored in the wallet. He eventually lost a whopping $6,50,000 ( ₹4.97 crores) worth of crypto wealth in a matter of seconds.

Man loses his crypto fortune

The incident happened in the weirdest of ways. Domenic wrote on his Twitter timeline that he received a phone call from an unknown number which the iPhone showed as 'Apple' on its caller Prior to that, he says that he got several text messages that requested him to reset his Apple ID. It was here when he got suspicious and had the Apple Inc not showed up on the caller ID< he would have ignored.

However, when he called the number back, the person on the other side asked for a code that was sent to his phone. And he ended up giving it away, which eventually led to his Meta Mask account getting hacked and his entire digital wallet was wiped out.

“This is how it happened, Got a phone call from apple, literally from apple (on my caller Id) Called it back because I suspected fraud and it was an apple number. So I believed them. They asked for a code that was sent to my phone and 2 seconds later my entire MetaMask was wiped,” he wrote.

Winder how the code sharing made him lose his crypto fortune? Dominic said the hackers gained access to his 12-letter 'seed phrase' provided by the MetaMask digital wallet. MetaMask advises not to share that data with anyone else and while he did not want to do that, the hackers obtained the code from his iCloud account. MetaMask automatically stores the seed phrase file on a user’s iCloud account if backup for the app has been enabled.

It can happen to you too! How to stay safe then?

Hackers always play around with fear to grab access to critical passwords and codes. While it is often easy to say for us to not do that, the human mind sometimes fails to figure out the suspicious activity and give up. Hence, there are only a few things you can do to keep your data and wealth safe from these scamsters.

- Always disable any backup of these wealth apps to iCloud on your iPhone. You can turn off iCloud backup from the Settings. Go to Settings > Profile > iCloud > Manage Storage > Backups.

- Never keep the password or code saved on your phone. Any hacker can always gain access to it and rob you even before you know it.

- Neither Apple, nor any bank will send messages or call to make you change your password. Hence, keep an eye out for such messages.