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Bitfinex Alerts Users of Phishing Emails

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:50 PM
Olusegun Ogundeji
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:50 PM

Bitfinex has alerted of phishing emails being circulated from an address that is made to appear to be one of its email addresses.

The distressed company notes in a blog post  on its website that the email is not from any @bitfinex.com address but from @ibitfinex.com, stressing the additional i.

Bitfinex states:

We like to stress this is not a message sent out by Bitfinex and we advise anyone that has received this email or any similar email to delete it immediately. Do not open the attachments and if you have opened the attachments do a full virus scan of your computer.

It added that any user that receives an email from Bitfinex and has doubts about the validity of the message received should send an email to [email protected] .

Below is a copy of the  phishing email as published by Bitfinex: 

We apologize to you for our inconveniences appeared in result of security incident. We intensively work with the law enforcement agencies to find out guilty people to make answer. In near future our website will be restarted. We will strive to keep you as informed as we can

Unfortunately, our losses have a big scale. So, we cannot return you a total sum of lost money.

But we propose a solution.

We are planning to set electronic bonds which will let you claim for dividend payment from the common benefit of our company. You will receive the percentage of dividends, equal to the sum of lost funds.

If you accept our offer, please, check your personal information carefully, fill in the Application for refund and send it back to us.

Thank you for understanding and support.

The Bitfinex Team

Taking Advantage of People’s Trust

It is not uncommon for phishers to make attempts to take advantage of an unfortunate situation like the Bitfinex hack in which bitcoins worth almost $70 million was stolen on August 2 following a reported security breach.

In July, following the sudden disappearance of HashOcean, bitcoin mining company, with miners’ bitcoin worth millions of dollars, several attempts were made by phishers to con desperate victims into parting with more money to recover lost or stolen money. They sent out phishing emails, created phony websites, and Facebook pages to lure unsuspecting victims.

It usually starts with attempts to reassure the victims and to gain their trust for more information.

Before the update on the phishing, Bitfinex had earlier announced it was leaning towards a socialized loss scenario among bitcoin balances and active loans to BTCUSD positions. Most of the respondents to the update were not in support of the move.

Featured image from Shutterstock.