Crypto User Loses $282M In Social Engineering Attack — Details
2026 received off to a disastrous begin for one crypto person, who fell sufferer to one of many largest social engineering attacks in digital asset historical past, dropping over $282 million in Bitcoin and Litecoin.
How Crypto User Fell Victim To $282M Theft
According to outstanding blockchain sleuth ZachXBT, the crypto theft occurred on January 10, 2026 at round 11:00 pm UTC. Around 2.05 million Litecoin (value roughly $153 million) and 1,459 Bitcoin (equal to round $139 million) was drained from the sufferer’s {hardware} pockets after they have been tricked into sharing their seed phrase.
The exploiter swiftly transferred the funds throughout a number of networks to obscure the path after gaining full management of the crypto pockets. As revealed by ZachXBT, the attacker first started changing the stolen crypto property into Monero’s native token, XMR, by way of a number of prompt exchanges, resulting in a surge within the value of XMR.
Furthermore, the exploiter bridged important quantities of the stolen Bitcoin throughout Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin by way of THORChain, a decentralized cross-chain platform that allows customers to swap crypto property between completely different blockchain networks. Unsurprisingly, this transfer reignited the talk across the use — or abuse — of censorship-resistant cross-chain protocols, particularly throughout safety breaches.
After the information of the assault made it to social media, conversations across the entity or individuals behind $282 million theft began, with many linking it to a state-sponsored hacking group. However, ZachXBT categorically said that “it’s not North Korea,” probably exonerating the notorious state-backed Lazarus Group.
In a submit on LinkedIn, safety agency ZeroShadow described the sufferer as a Bitcoin pockets “belonging to a person who had been tricked into sharing their seed phrase by an actor impersonating Trezor ‘Value Wallet’ help.” The agency claimed that it was in a position to monitor and flag elements of the stolen funds in actual time after being alerted by blockchain monitoring groups.
According to ZeroShadow, roughly $700,000 value of crypto property have been reportedly frozen earlier than they could possibly be totally swapped into privacy-focused property. This newest incident sheds gentle on how the digital asset business remains to be being focused by malicious actors.
XMR Price Rallies To New High Following Security Incident
As described by ZachXBT, the attacker, after gaining management of the sufferer’s pockets, started changing the stolen crypto property into Monero’s native token, XMR, by way of a number of exchanges. In the background, this exercise pushed the worth of the privacy-focused XMR to a brand new all-time high round $800 over the previous week.
According to knowledge from CoinGecko, the XMR token rallied nearly 80% to $797.73 from a weekly low round $450 following the crypto theft. As of this writing, XMR is valued at round $588, reflecting a virtually 25% drop prior to now few days.
