Downloading a movie can sometimes have its consequences, or else tell one of the security managers of the Spanish fintech 2gether. And it is that in a matter of two years, the company suffered a theft of cryptocurrencies worth 7.2 million euros. And it all started by downloading a movie.
During his working day, one of the employees of 2gether, a Spanish platform specialized in cryptocurrencies, downloaded a movie through a web page that seems not very reliable. And it is that the film contained the Trojan ‘NanoCore’, a malware that, already installed in the company’s network, was in charge of collecting all kinds of information: passwords, profiles, telephone numbers, etc. .
Downloading a movie has never been so difficult
The criminals did not act at that very moment, but waited until July 31, 2020 to carry out the coup. A smart move, since it was vacation time. At that time, through various teams they transferred the cryptocurrencies to their digital wallets, a theft worth 1.3 million euros. Today, the amount of stolen cryptocurrencies would have a value of about six million euros.
To launder the money, they used a network of digital wallets and thus transferred it in several parts. However, after the robbery they left the wallets inactive for a while to go unnoticed.
Someone stole $11 billion worth of cryptocurrencies. Six years later, they believe they have discovered him
In November 2021, a clue allowed the Civil Guard to advance in the investigation. According to sources, one of the detainees gave cryptocurrencies to all his family and friends. Studying the movements allowed the Civil Guard to identify several people involved in the robbery and after that they began house searches in Tenerife, Barcelona and Bilbao, locations where a total of four people were arrested.
The Department Against Cybercrime of the Civil Guard together with the Court of Instruction number 12 of Madrid, carried out an operation in which they were able to recover a total of 900,000 euros in cryptocurrencies that supposedly belonged to the Stole. One of the arrests occurred this week in Valencia, where they found a person who was related to the leader of this gang of cybercriminals.
Just when everything seemed to be over, the company suffers another robbery
While this theft brought 2gether to the brink of bankruptcy, it wasn’t the only problem the company had to deal with. On December 31, 2021 2gether sent an email to its users saying that 11 digital wallets would have been affected in a second cryptocurrency theft. One of the accounts belonged to the CEO of the platform, Ramón Ferraz, while the others belonged to the users who had put the most money into it. Although 2gether did not confirm the amount, some sources indicate that the figure would amount to about 1.2 million euros, which added to the other theft, the value reaches 7.2 million euros.
The strange thing about this second robbery is that, after Deloitte’s expert report, it was concluded that there was no external attack, so everything indicates that someone from the company had something to do with it . In addition, it occurred weeks after the arrests, which indicates that it was not accidental. Apparently, 2gether was going to call a meeting to dismiss Ramón Ferraz, but it ended up being cancelled.