This malicious Firefox extension will drain your crypto wallet
Fake extension’s phishing website is still online
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A maliciousFirefoxadd-on named “Safepal Wallet” managed to stay listed on the official Mozilla add-ons website for seven months as it scammed users by emptying out theircryptocurrency wallets.
SafePal is a legitimate hardware cryptocurrency wallet that is designed to hold more than 10,000 types of assets, includingBitcoin,Ethereum, and Litecoin.
However, while the wallet does have official smartphone apps available for bothApple AppStoreandGoogle Play Store, the website doesn’t list any browser extensions.
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“After I installed this extension and logged in with my credentials it was not working,”reportedFirefox user Cali, adding that when they checked back about 8 hours later, their cryptos worth around $4000 had been transferred to another wallet.
Due diligence
Within five days of Cali’s public report of the incident this month, a Mozilla spokespersonrespondedsaying that they were investigating the incident, before dropping the fake add-on’s listing.
Reporting on the development,BleepingComputerexplains that in order to publish an add-on on Mozilla’s add-ons website, developers must follow asubmission processthat states submitted add-ons are “subject to review by Mozilla at any time.”
However, the extent of such a review isn’t specified, nor has Mozilla explained how the fake add-on managed to get listed.
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Furthermore, while the malicious browser add-on has been taken down,BleepingComputerreports that thephishingwebsite set up by the threat actors is still up.
The website asks users for their secret twelve-word backup phrase in order to pair the SafePal wallet, which is then silently sent to the threat actor behind the fake extension.
ViaBleepingComputer
With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’sTechRadar Pro’sexpert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.
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