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The Excerpt

For those with crypto wealth, beware the wrench attack

The Excerpt

USA TODAY

Daily News, News

4.41.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the high-stakes world of cryptocurrency, cybercrime is no longer the only concern for investors. A rise in street crime tactics means that some wealthy crypto owners have fallen prey to physical attacks and coercion. You may have seen a recent headline regarding a crypto owner who was kidnapped and tortured in a Manhattan townhouse by criminals who were attempting to steal his bitcoin. These brazen physical attacks have come to be known as “wrench attacks.” How can crypto investors protect themselves, and their stash, from both cybercrime and violent crime? Nick Neuman, CEO of Casa, a cryptocurrency company that specializes in providing security solutions for digital assets, joins The Excerpt to share his insights.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:06.7

Dana Farber's Dr. Anthony Latai, describing work that led to an inhibitor drug against chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

0:13.1

And it started with Dr. Stanley Korsmeyer, who identified BCL2 as the protein cancer cells used to prevent self-destruction.

0:20.6

Momentum. One brilliant discovery building on another.

0:24.1

Go to Danafarber.org slash stories and see how what we do here changes lives everywhere.

0:33.5

Hello and welcome to the excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Sunday, June 15, 2025.

0:43.5

In the high-stakes world of cryptocurrency, cybercrime is no longer the only concern for investors. A rise in street crime tactics means that some wealthy crypto owners have fallen prey to physical attacks and coercion.

1:01.3

You may have seen a recent headline regarding a crypto owner who was kidnapped and tortured in a Manhattan townhouse by criminals who were attempting to steal his Bitcoin.

1:11.0

These brazen physical attacks have come to be known as wrench attacks.

1:16.1

How can crypto investors protect themselves and their stash from both cybercrime and violent crime?

1:22.9

Joining us to dig into crypto security as Nick Newman of Kasa,

1:30.1

a cryptocurrency company that specializes in providing security solutions for digital assets. Thanks for joining me, Nick.

1:34.6

Thanks, Dana. Great to be here. Let's start with the disturbing name given to these crimes,

1:40.8

wrench attacks. I'm not sure if you can describe these crimes in a way that isn't

1:46.0

graphic, but what is a wrench attack? How did it get the name?

1:50.0

This is a great question because it is a weird name. The name itself sounds very graphic.

1:56.0

It comes originally from a comic, actually, and the first scene shows these two guys with this computer

2:04.2

saying oh there's millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency on this computer but it's encrypted

2:10.6

and it uses all this fancy encryption and we don't have the password and dang we're foiled right we

2:17.4

can't get it the next frame of the comic strip

2:20.1

it says this is what actually happens and they say oh this laptop we have is encrypted drug the guy

2:28.0

and hit him with this five dollar wrench until he gives us the password and so it's kind of this

...

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