Report: Two Israeli Brothers Arrested for Hack of Bitfinex Crypto Exchange

Two Israeli brothers have been arrested in connection with the hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and other crypto-related phishing attacks, finance news outlet Finance Magnates reports on June 23.

An Israeli police spokesperson reportedly told Finance Magnates that Eli Gigi and his younger brother Assaf Gigi netted tens of millions of dollars. The two are suspected of being responsible for long-term systematic theft of cryptocurrencies by maliciously obtaining access to other users’ accounts.

The two allegedly created credential-stealing clones of major online cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets and sent links to those phishing sites on Telegram groups and other cryptocurrency-related communities. The two are also accused of being responsible for the 2016 Bitfinex hack, which saw multiple accounts being compromised.

As Cointelegraph reported at the beginning of June, the funds stolen in the attack above have been recently moved.

The police noted that the alleged victims were mostly based out of the European Union and the United States, which resulted in the matter being investigated by multiple law enforcement agencies in several countries.

During the raid, the police reportedly found a cryptocurrency wallet containing significantly less funds than the amount that the two are believed to have stolen. Finance Magnates also notes that Eli Gigi is a graduate of an elite technological unit of the Israel Defence Forces that selects youth with outstanding academic capabilities.

As Cointelegraph reported earlier this week, a recent Firefox zero-day security flaw was used in attacks against major crypto exchange and wallet service Coinbase. The flaw was purportedly merged with another zero-day flaw targeting Coinbase employees, meaning that there were two separate attacks.

While Coinbase was affected, the exchange’s security researcher Philip Martin stated that Coinbase was not the only crypto-related company targeted in the campaign and that there was no evidence of the campaign targeting exchange customers.