Ripple CTO Says He’s “Too Smart” to Fall for Phishing Scam

David Schwartz, Ripple CTO was seen earlier on X bragging about how smart he is and how he cannot fall victim to a certain kind of phishing scam.

New Crypto Veteran Suffers Exploit

One X user identified as Cory Doctorow reported how he was hacked and robbed of his assets. According to his description, this was a phishing scam and the phone-phisher posed as his bank, convincing him to give up his bank details including his credit card number. Just before he realized that it was a scam, more than $8,000 had been siphoned from his account.

Schwartz’s response to Doctorow’s post suggests that he thinks the strategy of the scammer was too obvious for Cory to have missed. He therefore believes that he is too smart for such tactics.

While there is really no means to measure the level of smartness that Ripple’s CTO possesses in relation to this style of scams, it is worth noting that the bad actors behind these schemes have become dynamic in their operations, designing a new technique for every time they plan to attack.

Phishing Scams in Disguise

Blockworks founder Jason Yanowitz was also recently hacked and he took to X to share his experience. 

In his case, the hacker who was located in North Cyprus, broke through the two-factor authentication (2FA) security setup he had initially activated on his accounts and logged into his email and wallets. 

Even Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse was also cloned by certain scammers via the use of an Artificial Intelligence software. He was seen urging XRP customers and other interested crypto enthusiasts to bring their holdings for doubling. On discovery, Garlinghouse informed his followers of the deepfake video that was simulated to talk and gesticulate like him.

Sometimes, it is a case of exploiting temporary addresses and sidestepping wallet defenses based on address blacklists. This was exactly how hackers have made away with $12 million on crypto assets including Chainlink (LINK), SatoshiVM (SAVM), Optimism (OP), Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Binance USD (BUSD) and SuperVerse (SUPER) tokens in the past.

Considering these dynamics, it may be too early for anyone to say that they are safe from these attacks, rather all netizens are advised to remain vigilant and cautious in their dealings online.