Specialist lawyers lead cyber counterattack

William Frentzen spoke to Financial Times about his experience with handling cyberattacks for his clients, recounting the time he helped recover the entirety of $197m that was stolen from cryptolending platform Euler Finance in a cyber theft.

William explained how they were able to contact the hacker through a wallet on a public blockchain and capitalize on the thief’s mistake. “The hacker made a strategic error in paying 100 ETH, or Ether, worth approximately $170,000 at that time, into an account reputed to be linked to North Korean hackers. Very soon after, North Korea started sending what appeared to be phishing messages. We emphasized this interest to the hacker as a pressure point and [said] that it was bad enough with the FBI and DoJ on the case — you do not want to attract the interest of state actors and organized crime,” he stated.

Finally, William recalled how the money was able to return to his client, stating, “The money was returned to us in pieces — including a payment to one individual in Latin America, and we kept the conversation going. We eventually got all the money back and, because it was Ether and the price of Ether went up, we were able to obtain $220mn to return to Euler’s users.”

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