The essence of the attack is the appearance of a pop-up window that looks like a security alert. User is asked to call a fake hotline. Attackers posing as cybersecurity experts use social engineering techniques to manipulate users into providing login credentials to an exchange account.
Before contacting the fraudulent call center, Kraken specialists helped the youtuber create a fake account that supposedly held a large amount of bitcoins. Fraudsters over the phone asked the user to check their Kraken account to see if their funds were safe. And then demanded that he create a withdrawal request.
As a result of the special operation, Kraken technicians managed to collect data on several cryptocurrency addresses used by operators of the so-called call center. Kraken passed along information about those addresses to other exchanges to freeze stolen assets and prevent criminals from moving them out.
In June, phishing attacks targeting Coinbase users also became known. Fraudsters also introduced themselves as exchange support and sent clients special codes to supposedly unlock their accounts.