U.S. authorities seized $23M in crypto linked to a $150M Ripple wallet theft, experts believe the incident is linked to the 2022 LastPass breach.
U.S. authorities seized $23M in crypto tied to a $150M Ripple hack, suspected to have been carried out by hackers from the 2022 LastPass breach.
Security researcher ZachXBT identified the victim as Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen. Authorities seized $24M in frozen assets before they could be withdrawn. This aligns with prior findings that cybercriminals cracked master passwords from LastPass to carry out major heists. The government’s latest action officially secures the recovered funds.
Law enforcement traced $23,604,815.09 of stolen crypto between June 2024 and February 2025 to multiple exchanges, including OKX, Kraken, WhiteBIT, AscendEX, FixedFloat, SwapSpace, and CoinRabbit.
According to the complaint for forfeiture unsealed by the U.S. DoJ, threat actors may have used private keys extracted by cracking the victim’s password vault stolen from the 2022 security breach suffered by an online password manager.
“In December 2022, the above-described commercial online password manager suffered two major data breaches — one in August 2022 and one in November 2022 — in which the attackers stole encrypted passwords and the online password manager vault data. December 2022, the above-described commercial online password manager suffered two major data breaches — one in August 2022 and one in November 2022 — in which the attackers stole encrypted passwords and the online password manager vault data.” reads the complaint. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) has been investigating these data breaches, and law enforcement agents investigating the instant case have spoken with FBI agents about their investigation. From those conversations, law enforcement agents in this case learned that the stolen data and passwords that were stored in several victims’ online password manager accounts were used to illegally, and without authorization, access the victims” electronic accounts and steal information, cryptocurrency, and other data”
Investigators didn’t name the password manager but noted it suffered major breaches in August and November 2022, which match with the incident suffered by LastPass.
Investigators found no evidence of device hacking, supporting the hypothesis that attackers decrypted stolen password manager data to access the victim’s crypto wallet. The scale and speed of the theft indicate a coordinated effort, consistent with previous breaches of online password managers and crypto thefts. Authorities believe the same hackers behind those attacks were responsible for this incident.
“Working with dozens of victims, security researchers Nick Bax and Taylor Monahan found that none of the six-figure cyberheist victims appeared to have suffered the sorts of attacks that typically preface a high-dollar crypto theft, such as the compromise of one’s email and/or mobile phone accounts, or SIM-swapping attacks.” reported KrebsOnSecurity.
“They discovered the victims all had something else in common: Each had at one point stored their cryptocurrency seed phrase — the secret code that lets anyone gain access to your cryptocurrency holdings — in the “Secure Notes” area of their LastPass account prior to the 2022 breaches at the company. Bax and Monahan found another common theme with these robberies: They all followed a similar pattern of cashing out, rapidly moving stolen funds to a dizzying number of drop accounts scattered across various cryptocurrency exchanges.”
However. LastPass’s statement highlights that they are not aware of any conclusive evidence that connects any crypto thefts to our incident.
“Since we initially disclosed this incident back in 2022, LastPass has worked in close cooperation with multiple representatives from law enforcement. To date, our law enforcement partners have not made us aware of any conclusive evidence that connects any crypto thefts to our incident.” reads the statement. “In the meantime, we have been investing heavily in enhancing our security measures and will continue to do so.”
Monahan criticized LastPass for not warning users that stored secrets, especially in “Secure Notes,” may be at risk, blaming their inaction for massive financial losses.
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