TON: the crypto ecosystem of Telegram is full of hacks

The crypto ecosystem of Telegram, TON, would already be full of hack attacks. 

This is what was claimed yesterday by the founder of SlowMist, Yu Xian, on his official X profile. 

Crypto Telegram: The problem of hacks on Ton

In particular, according to Yu Xian, it would be the increase in phishing attempts within the TON ecosystem. 

The founder of SlowMist argues that the Telegram ecosystem is too free, allowing many phishing links (or bot modules) to be spread through groups, airdrops, and other deceptive methods.

The objective of these attacks would be to steal significant amounts of crypto assets, particularly NFT.

The problem is that the Telegram crypto wallet is similar to the phone numbers that many people use to create Telegram accounts. In the absence of two-step verification activation, strongly suggested for those who have an account on Telegram, one is easily subject to phishing attacks.

Phishing

The so-called phishing is a mode of attack that has existed for decades now. 

The operation is very simple, from a theoretical point of view: convince the potential victim to provide their personal information, such as passwords. 

The practical implementation is more complex, and generally hackers use fake profiles, websites, or apps that pretend to be authoritative and reliable sources. 

For example, in the case of Telegram, there are so-called automatic phishing bots, thanks to which fake profiles or bots are created that actually ask the user for the password. 

A classic method is to subscribe to a channel, create an apparently identical replica of the channel with a bot, and then somehow and with some excuse get the link to the fake bot to the owner or administrator of the channel, passing it off as the link to the real channel. 

An inexperienced user in this case might believe that it is their channel, and might therefore enter their access data, which would instead be collected by the creator of the bot and then used later to access the channel. 

Unfortunately, it is not at all a complicated procedure, so much so that there are even illegal online services that offer pre-packaged bull phishing attacks of this type. 

The problem on TON

Since Telegram started integrating transactions on the TON network, and the crypto wallet, this type of attack has multiplied, because now hackers are targeting also and especially the crypto held by users in their wallets. 

To tell the truth, the Telegram wallet is custodian, so in theory Telegram could also block these transactions, but the problem is that thanks to phishing, hackers manage to carry them out with the correct credentials of the users from whom they have stolen them, and therefore for Telegram it becomes very difficult to recognize them. 

Once the funds are transferred to an external non-custodial wallet, Telegram can no longer do anything about it. 

In fact, Telegram has always been a rather open platform, with few limitations. Over the years, this has favored an abnormal proliferation of fake profiles, with which, for example, scammers impersonate famous characters in the crypto sector to convince the naive to send them funds.

It is therefore not a vulnerability of TON, or of Telegram, but an approach that does not disadvantage the bull and bear scammers too much. 

The more experienced and attentive users do not have much to fear, but for those who do not have extensive knowledge in this field, the risk becomes significantly higher. 

The growth of TON attracts hack attacks against Telegram’s crypto ecosystem

Telegram is a messaging app launched in 2013, more than 10 years ago (and four years after Bitcoin).

Over the years, it has grown tremendously, becoming the second messaging app in the world with over 900 million active users globally on a monthly basis. 

TON instead is what remains of Telegram’s crypto project, launched in 2018 but then aborted and transformed into a theoretically decentralized ecosystem. 

It was launched in 2022, but it took off only this year. 

At the end of 2023, the TVL on TON was below 15 million dollars, while now it has soared to 630 million, enough to have already positioned itself in 14th place behind much older crypto ecosystems like Cronos or Cardano.

Additionally, with less than 700 million dollars of TVL, there are also some of the main layer-2 of Ethereum, such as Optimism, or very important chains in the DeFi field like Avalanche, while for example Polygon is at less than 850. In the case of a further doubling, TON would enter the top 10 surpassing Bitcoin.

It is inevitable that with these numbers it starts to attract hackers, also and especially due to the fact that Telegram is not a particularly protected system.

The app has always placed greater emphasis on freedom and openness, rather than control and closure, so it is inevitable that over time it has also attracted many scammers.