A hacker stole $282 million worth of litecoin (LTC) and bitcoin (BTC) following a hardware wallet social-engineering attack, according to blockchain researcher ZachXBT.
The victim lost 2.05 million LTC and 1,459 BTC, with the loot swiftly being swapped for privacy coin monero (XMR) through multiple instant exchanges.
A portion of the bitcoin was also bridged to Ethereum, Ripple and Litecoin via Thorchain, ZachXBT added. He said North Korean hackers were not involved.
The hack occurred on Jan. 10 at 23:00 UTC, sparking a 70% rise in the price of XMR over the subsequent four days.
It remains unclear whether the victim was a sole crypto holder or a company, but it follows a 2025 trend that puts social engineering as the top attack vector for hackers. A social engineering attack typically involves posing as an employee of a company and securing the trust of a victim before persuading them to send sensitive information, such as a private key or login details.
On Jan. 5, hardware wallet provider Ledger suffered a data leak stemming from unauthorized access to Ledger users' personal details like names and contact information.