Ripple CTO Boasts He’s “Too Smart” to Fall For Phishing Scams

• Ripple CTO David Schwartz boasts that he does not fall for phishing scams.
• Schwartz’s comments came in response to an X user who had been victimized by a phishing scam.
• Reacting to the tweet, Schwartz asserted that such scams are common and can happen to anyone except him.

Ripple CTO David Schwartz recently boasted in an X post that he doesn’t fall victim to phishing scams. Scams have become ubiquitous on social media and increasingly sophisticated, but Schwartz says he is “too smart to fall for this kind of thing.”

Schwartz’s tweet came in response to an X user, Cory Doctorow, who described a recent phishing scam that stole his assets. The X user’s thread began “I wuz robbed.”

The victim explained that the attacker, probably a phone phisher, pretended to be his bank and asked him for his bank details. As he failed to recognize the scammer, he lost more than $8000 in assets. In the thread, Cory Doctorow narrated the long story of the scam, which happened over the Christmas holidays.

David Schwartz sympathized with the victim, saying “It can happen to anyone”. His comment came after the recent revelation by Ripple Co-Founder Chris Larsen that he had personally lost 213 million XRP tokens worth $112.5 million to hackers. According to his statement, the attack began with “unauthorized access” to some of his accounts.

In a previous incident, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse was cloned using artificial intelligence (AI) software, scamming XRP users into sending their tokens to a “designated address” under the promise that their deposits would be doubled. In response, Garlinghouse cautioned against the spread of “deepfake scam videos.”

Earlier this year, Ripple’s CTO warned against an evolving scam scheme targeting unsuspected OpenSea users. He shared the screenshot of an email sent to one of the attacker’s targets, and emphasized that he is aware and cautious about the spread of these crimes.