FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried announced yesterday that victims of a phishing campaign linked to the exchange would be compensated. But FTX does not intend to make a habit of it.
FTX will compensate victims of phishing campaign
Sam Bankman-Fried announced the move in a Twitter thread where he discussed the dangers of phishing campaigns. More specifically, it was a recent attack that caught his attention. Users have had their accounts used to make unauthorised exchanges by registering on fraudulent sites. In particular, a fake site posing as the trading bot provider 3 Commas.
9) They provided their FTX api keys to use the sites’ trading tools. Others users were probably phished through other methods. But one way or another, these users were exploited by third party attackers.
– SBF (@SBF_FTX) October 23, 2022
Users provided their API keys for their FTX account to be used. FTX’s CEO reminds us that it is the responsibility of users not to provide access to fraudulent sites, and that there is little the exchange platforms can do when these types of attacks occur.
This time, however, FTX has chosen to pay compensation to affected users. This will amount to 6 million dollars. Sam Bankman-Fried says that these are only FTX users, and invites other platforms to do the same.
Not a habit to be broken
However, the CEO stresses that this is an unusual move, which should not be seen as a precedent. FTX will not compensate phishing victims in the future:
13) But in this particular case, we will compensate the affected users.
THIS IS A ONE-TIME THING AND WE WILL NOT DO THIS GOING FORWARD.
THIS IS NOT A PRECEDENT.
We will not make a habit of compensating for uses getting phished by fake versions of other companies!
– SBF (@SBF_FTX) October 23, 2022
FTX’s CEO has recently come under fire after publishing a strong opinion in favour of strong regulation of the decentralised finance ecosystem (DeFi). This news should therefore be received more favourably by FTX users.
