FTX Freezes User Account on Claims Portal to Mitigate Kroll Hack

In response to the Kroll cybersecurity breach which happened a few days ago, bankrupt cryptocurrency trading firm FTX Derivatives Exchange has decided to temporarily freeze accounts of affected users on its claims portal. 

FTX Mitigating Impact of the Kroll Attack

The decision from FTX was made as a precautionary measure against a recurrence or further damages following the hack. The exchange promises to share more information in due course.

Users were advised against modifying their claims or the accepted schedules as a result of the incident. According to FTX, all filed claim data submitted via the Kroll customer claims portal are intact, recorded and remain valid.

In response to Kroll’s cybersecurity incident, FTX has taken the precautionary measure of temporarily freezing affected user accounts within the customer claims portal. We thank you for your patience, and will provide additional information regarding next steps in due course.

— FTX (@FTX_Official) August 25, 2023

Kroll Restructuring Administration, the claims and noticing agent appointed to FTX for its bankruptcy proceeding, suffered a breach which compromised non-sensitive data that belongs to claimants in the bankruptcy case. Kroll assured FTX that it has the situation under control and would continue to monitor it. Justifying this assurance, FTX confirmed that its account passwords, systems, and funds were not affected by the incident.

“The incident occurred at Kroll, and Kroll is notifying affected individuals directly with measures that customers can take to protect themselves. FTX account passwords were not maintained by Kroll, and FTX’s own systems were not affected,” FTX informed its users on the X app. 

However, blockchain sleuth ZachXBT confirmed that FTX customers have begun to receive phishing emails and their personal data might have been compromised. 

Friend.tech Suffers Similar Data Breach

Markedly, a similar data leak happened on new decentralized social network Friend.tech. One Yearn Finance contributor identified as Banteg reported the breach of sensitive user data on Github. The exploit leaked data of over 101,000 individuals, including their Base wallet addresses and X identities. 

Friend.tech argued that most of this leaked material was already public, like someone perusing a public Twitter feed. It happened to be that 101,183 people unintentionally gave friend.tech the authority to publish on their behalf. 

With the growing trend of data breaches, users are advised to be cautious and remain vigilant about their online security. Users should be careful about granting third-party access to their social media accounts and many other sensitive information.