Users of Trust Wallet encountered losses exceeding $7 million soon after the release of an updated Chrome web browser extension. Changpeng Zhao, co-founder of Binance, which owns the service, stated that the stolen assets will be reimbursed.
The incident, brought to light on December 25 by blockchain investigator ZachXBT, was affirmed by the wallet team.
“Community alert: Several Trust Wallet users reported that funds were removed from their wallet addresses in the past couple of hours,” ZachXBT shared on Telegram. “While the precise cause remains unknown, it coincidentally follows a new update for the Trust Wallet Chrome extension that was released yesterday.”
Crypto wallets safeguard users’ cryptocurrency keys, and if malicious individuals gain access, they can authorize transfers of funds to their controlled destinations. According to a Chainalysis report, crypto theft surged to $6.75 billion this year. The number of compromised personal wallets skyrocketed from 64,000 to 158,000 compared to last year, although the sum stolen represented 20% of the overall, down from 44%.
This breach pertains to version 2.68 of the Trust Wallet browser extension, as the wallet team announced on X, advising users to avoid that version and upgrade to version 2.69. “Users of mobile-only platforms and other versions of the browser extension are not affected.”
