You must have heard about people around you making millions and millions of rupees (or even dollars) from Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies, but today I am going to tell you about a Pakistani who lost millions of rupees in just a few seconds.
“Millions of rupees were lost and I couldn’t do anything about it”, I was told by the dismayed person who wants to remain unnamed.
Keep reading to know how he lost the money and how you can stay safe while dealing with coin transfers.
The worst thing about cryptocurrencies is that any transaction — for example if you are sending bitcoins to someone — is irreversible. There is no way of undoing a transaction.
In case if you are not familiar, you need a wallet address to transfer digital coins to receiving users. And it is always advised to double check the wallet address when you transfer coins.
User who intends to receive coins gives the senders a wallet address, which may look like this: 16KaVY37AcZaqJRBQzAhs3vgBiihyBkCSc
Users usually copy and paste this wallet address to send coins.
This address has to be exactly the same while sending coins. A small change can actually send coins to different receiver and the entire process is irreversible.
Here’s How Millions Were Lost
Like with any other tech, hacks and viruses are inevitable particularly when it comes to a game of billions like cryptocurrency. This particular virus that impacted our friend simply changes the wallet address when you copy an address and paste it for sending coins.
So imagine if you copy a wallet address from a Skype window (assume its address A) but when you paste it in your account to send coins, it’s different from the one you copied (assume the pasted address is B), resulting in the fund transfer going into the hacker’s account.
The virus simply changes the address in the clipboard and when you paste the string, it’s not the one you had copied.
And since all wallet addresses are random characters, they are usually hard to recognize.
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How to Avoid It?
As a common practice, digital currency users just check if there are any spaces at the end or start of the address before pressing the send button.
But in actuality, one must check at least the first and last five characters to make sure that the address is the intended one or not.
So instead of trusting Windows’ copy/paste feature, always check whether or not the wallet address is exactly the one that was sent to you.
i lost Billions in bitcoin due to this virus too.
billions?????
He meant “Arab”.
I Lost 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000Ƀ Bitcoin due to Virus Attack
uff crypto craze pata nahi kab khatam hoga..
Allah karachi dunia ka her mulk band kerde crypto currency
clearly u are unaware of the basic concepts of cryptocurrency.
Its a fluke. We know the real reality. Thats why we call it scam and a farce.
please do share the “real reality”
what a fake fucking post, tell me what malware is that? share the sample if you’re for real
Search on HF, you will find tools there which can change crypto id once pasted on to wallet.
There ‘could’ be some malware with such features but he made a whole saga out of it without any proof. That’s poor journalism
CLICKBAIT…. Totally a made-up story. Lowest level of journalism I must say!
What an irony. A nameless person calling the story fake.
The irony is that it’s our national responsibility to find fault in others when someone tries to criticize us.
This happened with me too, but luckily that was only 30$.
There are tools on HF, which provide change of bitcoin address once pasted in the address bar.
Seems fake to sensationalize because of the fact that it seems as if only Pakistanis are being hit by this virus and secondly the user should have verified whether he has copied the right wallet address or not. This is the first that a person performs when transferring BTC. Anyone who doesn’t know this should have no right to trade cryptos.
How to Avoid It?
1. Just use Genuine Windows and Legally acquired softwares.
2. Use anti virus.
Hahahahaha
Uncomprehendible this just looks like a made up story if any one transfers millions of cryptocurrencies from 1 address to another every one tries with a smaller amount of few hundred ruppes first than will transfer millions of ruppes. If this is a true story not a joke than only himself is responsible for this gross negligence
Yes, i also lost money a few days ago just because of this malware. Blockchain generates a new receiving address every time when you click receive and its difficult, you can’t remeber it. I copied my wallet address and pasted it on an ad network so that i can get payment and this malware changed that address while pasting. When they sent money it went on that changed address, i lost about $150. When i contacted Blockchain they said that this receiving address was never generated in your account you should scan your computer for malware, And i cleaned my system later. So the story can be true, bunch of noobs who don’t know about crypto are yelling its fake.. Come on..