Data reveals scammers swindled $55 million from a staggering 40,000 victims solely in the month of January.
Scam Sniffer analysts have uncovered a disconcerting trend in the world of cryptocurrency. They have reported that malicious individuals, commonly known as bad actors, managed to steal a staggering $55 million worth of digital currency in January alone. Not only that, but these cybercriminals also established over 11,000 phishing websites to carry out their fraudulent activities.
The surge in phishing attacks coincided with increased activity within the crypto communities. This surge followed a series of airdrops that took place in the previous month. Scam Sniffer’s data revealed that the scammers impersonated various reputable platforms and networks, including Manta Network, Frame, SatoshiVM, AltLayer, Dymension, zkSync, Pyth, OpenSea, Optimism, and Blast. These malicious actors successfully deceived users and managed to steal the substantial sum of $55 million across Ethereum Virtual Machine-based networks. The top seven victims alone lost a total of $17 million.
One of the common techniques employed by these hackers involved exploiting the ERC-20 Permit function. By doing so, they tricked users into unknowingly transferring funds from their non-custodial wallets, all under the pretense of legitimate operations. Another method used by the perpetrators was the manipulation of token allowances granted to malicious smart contracts. This was achieved by leveraging the increaseAllowance function. The scammers also took advantage of the trust placed in certain projects. They posted fake comments on various platforms, including X, pretending to represent legitimate projects such as Optimism and zKSync. This highlights the ongoing threat posed by fraudulent online entities.
In a related report, it was revealed that illicit crypto addresses received a staggering $24 billion worth of digital currency in 2023, a decrease from the estimated $39.6 billion in 2022. Data from Chainalysis suggests that there has been a shift in the types of assets involved in crypto crimes, with stablecoins now constituting the majority of illicit transaction volume.
The scale of crypto hacking and fraud is alarming, with a total of $2 billion stolen in 2023 alone. It is crucial for individuals to remain vigilant and take appropriate measures to protect their digital assets.
