Ledger investigates reported $80M crypto theft linked to CryptoBillis buyers
Ledger asked reseller CryptoBillis to pause wallet sales as Arkham tracked more than $80 million in reported losses across three blockchains.
Ledger is investigating reports that customers in Southeast Asia have lost their funds after they bought its hardware wallets through reseller CryptoBillis.
Blockchain analytics firm Arkham said more than $80 million was reportedly taken across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tron. However, neither Ledger nor Arkham has confirmed how the losses occurred.
Ledger tells CryptoBillis to pause sales
Ledger said it had asked CryptoBillis to stop selling and shipping its devices while the investigation continues.
The warning focuses on customers who bought these wallets from the reseller in the past 90 days.
Anyone who has not configured a recently purchased device should avoid doing so for now. Customers already using one should consider moving their assets to a new Ledger device protected by a new recovery phrase.
That recovery phrase is the set of words granting access to a wallet. Creating a new one prevents anyone who may know the old phrase from accessing the replacement wallet.
Ledger also told customers to only contact it through official support channels.
The company did not identify the affected device models or confirm that any Ledger product had been altered.
Arkham tracks funds across 152 addresses
Arkham created a “ledger-drainer” label covering 152 addresses and published images showing how these funds moved across different blockchains.
At the time of this writing, the labelled wallets held about $71.6 million, including around $29.4 million in Ether, $17.68 million in Bitcoin, $13.65 million in USDD and $10.85 million in USDT.
The balance that can be seen is not the total suspected loss because funds may already have moved out of these tracked wallets. Also, changing crypto prices can change the dollar value.
Arkham says the theft is above $80 million, while some other investigators say the amount is reportedly more than $86 million.
The actual figure has not been confirmed by Ledger, so the current available figures remain estimates.
Also, there has been no actual confirmation of what caused the hack, and there is no confirmation of a company-wide Ledger exploit.
Final Summary
- Ledger has paused CryptoBillis sales while investigating reports of customer losses.
- More than $80 million was reportedly taken, but the amount and cause have not been confirmed.
