An investor lost $24 million worth of bitcoin

[Baby Dragon]

Thieves stole roughly 1,500 bitcoins by taking control of his phone number and using Google's "Forgot password?" feature to gain access to his email. With possession of the two personal accounts, the thieves hacked Terpin's crypto wallet, stole the digital assets and quickly sold them,

To be honest and speaking like an ordinary man who is not really very technical, this story quietly illustrates why there are people who are afraid to deal with cryptocurrency because we can not deny that there is a big risk of being a victim of hacking. Hackers are now getting advanced and can always be studying new ways and means to get into people's fat wallets and get themselves rich in the process. I know this is never the fault of Bitcoin but in the face of this big risk a person may think twice of investing with digital assets. And the sadder part is that there is nothing we can do for now once the control is already on the hackers' side, we can only watch how the assets are transferred from one wallet to another and even trace them to different exchanges but to stop the whole thing is beyond anybody's power.

It is a big example that we should be careful of our decision because this world is hard then we ever think. We are making money digitally meaning we cannot handle our own money physically. So every step must be studied because one single mistake, all of your money will be loose. We should study every project we want to invest in because not every word they say is true, it is normal for them to say promising words so you should not trust that, you should find out on your own. You can see the reviews of other investors if that particular project is worth investing in.

Indeed, it is the reason why some of us need to be cautious and attentive particularly these days that there are some people who will take advantage of you and deceive you. You have to understand that you can encounter different problems and challenges that is why you have to prepare yourself if you have already experienced it then learn from your mistake. Use it as a guide so you can easily avoid doing it again, it's speculative and you can't easily tell people's true intention that is the reason why you need to have enough understanding when it comes to these things because you will never know when it will happen to you.

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[randegibran]

so, nothing is safe in our storage. especially on online storage, banks, crypto wallets, etc. I personally have experienced. EDO coins (EIDOO) at that time also had the highest price. around $ 20K, I don't know where the hacker came from. suddenly my assets were sent to another wallet. the only possible mistake is i didn't pay attention to the myether web link. so there is no safe system. hackers are always smarter at trapping us. so stay careful.

When you got coin excatly from investing assets or come from bounty campaign never hold for long term, we can't prediction how future our altcoin price will grow up or down, I still save my altcoin until today have drop price if I sell last three years I got much profit, but keep holding until now price down and not listed on exchange market.

[karanggatak]

this is the risk when we enter the hacking crypto market. therefore we must always improve our security system. if you have a fairly large amount of bitcoin it should be stored in a hardware wallet I think it will be safer. rather than saved this exchange site. and do not change telephone numbers or SIMs are very dangerous. and choose internet networks that have strong security. Here are some tips that I did so that our wallets are not easily hacked by hackers.

[piebeyb]

A Crypto investor Michael Terpin lost roughly 1,5oo bitcoins on January 7, 2018, after falling victim to a SIM swap attack, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The bitcoin stake was worth $24 million that day, roughly three weeks after the asset hit its record high price.
The incredibly precise hack involves thieves taking control of a phone number and using it to access email accounts, bank reserves, and even crypto wallets.
Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
One crypto investor lost bitcoin worth as much as $24 million after falling victim to a new kind of hack known as SIM swapping, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Michael Terpin was hit by the attack on January 7, 2018, days after bitcoin reached its record high price. Thieves stole roughly 1,500 bitcoins by taking control of his phone number and using Google's "Forgot password?" feature to gain access to his email. With possession of the two personal accounts, the thieves hacked Terpin's crypto wallet, stole the digital assets and quickly sold them, according to WSJ.
Bitcoin traded between $16,969 and $15,790 per coin on January 7, 2018. The digital coin now trades at roughly $8,700.

Source:
Wall Street journal

I am almost not sure this is a true story or just manipulating the market, so if indeed he stores bitcoin on an exchange site as easily as a hacker accessing his wallet with only a SIM card and hacking that email, it looks like a joke

how do hackers know their email and cellphone number. lol 
if indeed he publishes e-mails and telephone numbers it is clearly wrong

[rdluffy]

It's so sad to see such thing.
I already suffered a sim swap atack once and they stolen my money from the bank. Luck of me that the bank take the responsibility and gave me back the money
But in this case, there's nothing to do

[d3nz]

That's a huge money and really a sad old story. And why does the investor didn't activate the Google's Two-Authenticator because its much safer and i think it cannot be hacked easily.

And that is the reason why its much better to use a paper wallet or hardware wallet and only access it if you need to make a transaction and only save the private key via QR code in an online cloud and save it encrypted.

[Distinctin]

A Crypto investor Michael Terpin lost roughly 1,5oo bitcoins on January 7, 2018, after falling victim to a SIM swap attack, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Source:
Wall Street journal

Too sad to know that but if he is a wise and smart investor, he probably knows the risk of storing big amounts in an online wallet. For it will be bad to suffer such losses but have nothing to blame either. We've been hearing many claims and reports about this scenario and for us who haven't experienced yet, we better secure our funds first. Cause the more we are engaged in online services, the more we are vulnerable it hack attacks.

[fullhdpixel]

That is a sad story and it should really be a lesson to all of us too that we need to secure our cryptocurrencies very well and I think it was a mistake from this guy to have kept his currencies ion the wallet that he used. There has been an existence of hard wallet since that 2018 and I think that it was because he paid nonchalant attitude to it that made him to store such amount of coin in a wallet that is not very secured and also not taking control of his phone very well.

I believe this is one of the reasons why regulation is very necessary because if there was a regulation, I am sure that there is a way that the authority would have at least been able to trace the transaction to those scammers if they don’t use chip mixer to cover their tract anyway.

[Kambal2000]

That is a sad story and it should really be a lesson to all of us too that we need to secure our cryptocurrencies very well and I think it was a mistake from this guy to have kept his currencies ion the wallet that he used. There has been an existence of hard wallet since that 2018 and I think that it was because he paid nonchalant attitude to it that made him to store such amount of coin in a wallet that is not very secured and also not taking control of his phone very well.

I believe this is one of the reasons why regulation is very necessary because if there was a regulation, I am sure that there is a way that the authority would have at least been able to trace the transaction to those scammers if they don’t use chip mixer to cover their tract anyway.

A sad story to tell to every person especially to newbies that it is not just fine to just take risk money, that you have the courage and that you have the fund. Let's not be too greedy of how much return we could have as there is nothing permanent in this world, there is nothing instant, quick money, it needs a lot of hardwork, patience as well as a lot of investigation and research before we trust someone or the project.

[CypherMonk]

A Crypto investor Michael Terpin lost roughly 1,5oo bitcoins on January 7, 2018, after falling victim to a SIM swap attack, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The bitcoin stake was worth $24 million that day, roughly three weeks after the asset hit its record high price.
The incredibly precise hack involves thieves taking control of a phone number and using it to access email accounts, bank reserves, and even crypto wallets.
Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
One crypto investor lost bitcoin worth as much as $24 million after falling victim to a new kind of hack known as SIM swapping, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Michael Terpin was hit by the attack on January 7, 2018, days after bitcoin reached its record high price. Thieves stole roughly 1,500 bitcoins by taking control of his phone number and using Google's "Forgot password?" feature to gain access to his email. With possession of the two personal accounts, the thieves hacked Terpin's crypto wallet, stole the digital assets and quickly sold them, according to WSJ.
Bitcoin traded between $16,969 and $15,790 per coin on January 7, 2018. The digital coin now trades at roughly $8,700.

Source:
Wall Street journal

makes me wonder whats the best kind of storage for bitcoins in the long run.

[MI6]

I know how that feels. Maybe people in here after read that, will know and set 2fa and other securities in their google mail. At least people who can hold our number, or maybe when they have our password, with SIM swap, they can verify the login easily. But for google mail forgot password, i think for now it is not that simple because we asked for many question and although we can answer it, not means we can recover our account easily.

[Silberman]

Wow! That is a big hack attack and the target was well known otherwise they wouldn't know that he had 1.5k$ BTC which is crazy and foolish in the same time to not have extra security for such a big amount.

Imagine holding 24mil$ in a simple wallet thinking that you're not a target for those hackers who are waiting for people just like him in order to make their moves. I hope this is a lesson for those who are having big amounts of Bitcoin and not only , to improve the security of their wallets or simply move towards cold and hardware wallets.

Some people may have a lot of money but they lack common sense, holding 24 million dollars on your phone in an online wallet is the equivalent of someone carrying all his cash with him and whatever jewelry he has as well, while in theory you are free to do whatever you want that person is asking for trouble, the correct thing to do is to only carry with you whatever money you may need and a little extra in case of an emergency but nothing more than that.

[Dabs]

You don't even really need a hardware wallet. A wallet on their computer or mobile device used only for the purpose of storing coins would suffice. But with any amount above several thousand dollars, why not go get a hardware wallet too.

[DoublerHunter]

You don't even really need a hardware wallet. A wallet on their computer or mobile device used only for the purpose of storing coins would suffice. But with any amount above several thousand dollars, why not go get a hardware wallet too.

^ Definitely right, purchasing a little amount of his thousand dollars storing in hardware wallets is worth it. Probably the man who invested thousands of dollars in bitcoin does not have enough knowledge in Bitcoin. All probably all he knows is to invest only and wait until he gets profit. Carelessness will lead you from a victim of hacks and that was sad to story.

[Bitcoin_bullish]

I remember in the beginning of 2018 a lot of US cryptocurrency holders learned the news that they had to pay huge amounts on taxes.
I also remember quite a few claiming they got hacked same time.
Perhaps I'm wrong but I doubt that anyone has millions of dollars active on his mobile phone.

[royalfestus]

The OP didnt nail the subject of its message, what is to be learnt from the article? How to prevent such loss for every post reader. It is up to 2 years of the loss and posted article, so its not as new. Any new member or investor must understand the need to know how to protect his portfolio before the need to make profit. It could be a risky misplaced of priority for any member that is entering the space at the moment, sadly everyone is vulnerable to this

[Tylev]

Such a story will be repeated many more times. People will make many mistakes and just rash actions in cryptocurrency, which will lead to huge financial losses. Therefore, many will be disappointed and leave the cryptocurrency. Yes, unfortunately, cryptocurrency poses a huge risk to inept users.

[bitbunnny]

Sometimes people accept more risk than they can take, make wrong decisions and overestimate their limits and possibilities, sometimes they are just reckless and don't know or don't care enough about safety and security. Such loss is bery expensive but also very efficient school if the lesson is learned.

[Soots]

Such a story will be repeated many more times. People will make many mistakes and just rash actions in cryptocurrency, which will lead to huge financial losses. Therefore, many will be disappointed and leave the cryptocurrency. Yes, unfortunately, cryptocurrency poses a huge risk to inept users.

This isn't a good experience for an investor, which I think there's a serious reason why it happened losing such big amount of money. Having $24 million as capital investment was emotionally a deep struggle, and suddenly lost in a one time shoot of investing. I guess it needs time to move on for this and treat this as a big lesson not to risk money without certain knowledge about what sector you're part with.

[error08]

Misfortune for someone is a lesson for others, SIM swap attack is an old hacker trick, thus we can't really put too many funds in one place, even for a bank account.
Bitcoin is one of the best ways to transfer funds all over the world which becomes a good option for hackers to steal money and move it to another side of the globe, divide into some addresses, use the mixer or otc transaction to cover the track.