Terra has issued a warning to its users regarding the compromise of its layer-1 blockchain’s official website over the weekend. It has been reported that malicious actors have been using the website to conduct phishing attacks on visitors.
When users access the website, they are prompted to connect their online or hardware wallets. The hackers have disguised the official Terra webpage and inserted malicious code into users’ wallets.
If a user connects their wallet to this compromised webpage, they unknowingly sign a digital signature, granting the hacker access to the assets in their wallet. Terra’s official X (formerly Twitter) account posted a warning message on Sunday, advising users to refrain from interacting with sites using the terra(dot)money domain until a further update is provided.
Users have been urged to rely solely on official communication channels for updates. Station, a platform powered by Terra, has also advised its users to avoid using its extension, as well as the web and mobile apps, until an official update is released. Station is a Web3 interface that enables access to chains and decentralized applications (dApps) built within Cosmos.
Terra losses
The Terra blockchain suffered significant losses during the crypto downturn of 2022 and experienced the collapse of its native algorithmic stablecoin, $LUNA, resulting in a $60 billion loss in the crypto market.
The collapse also led to the insolvency of some crypto firms. In March of this year, Terra’s co-founder, Do Kwon, was indicted in the United States on eight charges, including securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud, and conspiracy.
According to the interior ministry of a European country, Kwon was arrested in Montenegro while attempting to travel to Dubai using falsified travel documents from Costa Rica. The arrest was announced on social media by Montenegro’s Internal Affairs Minister, Filip Adzic, who referred to Kwon as one of the most wanted fugitives, being a South Korean citizen and the co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based Terraform Labs.
At the time of writing, Terra has not disclosed the exact amount stolen in the recent compromise. Following the crash, the blockchain relaunched its related tokens and introduced the new LUNA token as its native cryptocurrency. LUNA currently has a market capitalization of $151 million.
According to CoinGecko, the token’s price has been on a downtrend, trading at $0.436 at the time of press, representing a decrease of over 22% in the last seven days.
