Skip to main content

iPhone user blames Apple for $600K Bitcoin theft via fake app

Apple removed the fake Trezor app several times, but it kept appearing on the App Store days later.

A scam cryptocurrency app on Apple’s app distribution service App Store has reportedly stolen $600,000 Bitcoin (BTC) from one iOS user.

Cryptocurrency holder Phillipe Christodoulou fell victim to a scam app on the App Store, losing nearly all his life savings to a fake crypto wallet application, The Washington Post reports Tuesday.

Christodoulou went on the App Store last month to search for a mobile Trezor app to check his Bitcoin balance via phone. Unaware that Trezor does not currently provide an iOS app, Christodoulou downloaded a doppelgänger Trezor application that boasted close to five stars, giving the impression that it was indeed an official app. After entering his seed phrase, Christodoulou said that his savings of 17.1 BTC were stolen.

Christodoulou said that Apple, which collects 15% to 30% commissions on sales, should be held responsible for this situation. “They betrayed the trust that I had in them. Apple doesn’t deserve to get away with this,” he stated. According to the Washington Post, Christodoulou filed a report with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Following notification from Trezor, Apple removed the fake Trezor app several times, but it kept appearing on the App Store days later.

The crypto community issomewhat divided on whether Apple should be blamed for the accident. “This is a f*cking nightmare. Scammed by a fake Trezor app in the ‘curated and safe’ Apple App Store,” crypto investor Scott Melker said on Twitter. Jameson Lopp, co-founder of crypto custody platform Casa said, “Stop entering seed phrases into software. Only enter seeds into dedicated Bitcoin hardware devices.”

Fake cryptocurrency wallet and trading apps have appeared on the App Store before. United Kingdom-based crypto intelligence company Coinfirm said that five people have reported having their crypto stolen by a fake Trezor app on iOS, with total losses estimated at $1.6 million. 

Trezor has alsowarned users about fraudulent doppelgänger apps on the Google Play Store. 

Apple and Trezor did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.



from https://ift.tt/3fugA9u
https://ift.tt/3dnKMRe

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

DeFi isn’t dead, it just needs to fix these 3 critical problems

It’s been a rough year for DeFi, and it may not get any better until projects focus more on security, regulation and usability. The persistent challenges  decentralized finance  face have been well documented by a handful of analysts and the recent collapse of the Terra ecosystem re-enforced the fact that something is critically wrong with DeFi. I think DeFi today is completely broken for 99% of the population. The promise of a more transparent financial system has been overtaken by greed. UST/LUNA is just the latest in a string of bad developments: — Peter Yang (@petergyang) May 11, 2022 Let's take a look at what experts say DeFi needs to do in order to have another revival.  Improved usability To date, the promise of open and uncensored access to a global decentralized financial system has been largely hampered by the complicated interface, confusing multi-step staking processes and lack of clarity surrounding the yields on various tokens. What do you thi...

ENS DAO delegates offer perspective on DAO governance and decentralized identity

AlphaWallet CEO and Spruce co-founder talk about their roles as contributors to the Ethereum Name Service following the project's recent airdrop. Earlier this month, the Ethereum Name Service, or ENS, formed a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, for the ENS community.  Cointelegraph spoke to two ENS DAO delegates who applied for the opportunity to represent the community and stay involved in the decision making process: Victor Zhang, CEO of AlphaWallet, an open source Ethereum wallet, and Gregory Rocco, co-founder of Spruce, a decentralized ID and data toolkit for developers. Zhang spoke about his experience as an external contributor to ENS and an early supporter since 2018. Zhang initially sought to help ENS by offering Alpha Wallet as a user-friendly tool for  resolving .eth names and cryptocurrency wallet addresses. Essentially, if a user inputs an .eth name in the AlphaWallet, it will show the wallet address, and vice versa using reverse resolution. Alpha...

Institutional demand for crypto isn’t subsiding, but impact will be gradual

As another $2-trillion stimulus package looms in the U.S., institutions will continue to look at BTC as a hedge against inflation. For example, just last week, when the currency was hovering around the $30,000 threshold, a whole host of pundits was warning investors to brace for impact, suggesting that the premier crypto asset was on the verge of a correction and could once again dip to around the $20,000 region. However, in just one day, Bitcoin was once again playing with the bulls, retesting the $38,500 limit, only to witness a selloff and eventually settle around the $33,500 region. While for most crypto veterans that might have been another day at the office, others branded the upsurge as “Elon’s Candle,” which relates to Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, who included “Bitcoin” in his Twitter bio as well as sent out the following cryptic message “in retrospect, it was inevitable” to his 40 million-odd followers online. Regardless of the cause, has the recent price volatility sca...