In the first two months of 2024, the cryptocurrency community has been hit with a staggering $104 million in losses due to phishing incidents. The majority of the victims were Ethereum ETH/USD users, who accounted for $78 million of the losses.
What Happened: The security firm Scam Sniffer revealed that approximately 97,000 users were affected by phishing incidents in the first two months of 2024, resulting in a $104 million loss. This figure includes $57.7 million lost in January and $46.8 million in February, reported The Block on Monday.
Phishing incidents involve users being deceived into revealing their private keys or other sensitive information, which cybercriminals then use to access and drain their cryptocurrency wallets. Ethereum users were particularly targeted, with the majority of the losses involving ether and ERC20 tokens.
"Most victims were lured to phishing websites through phishing comments from impersonated Twitter accounts," Scam Sniffer noted.
Why It Matters: The cryptocurrency space has been a hotbed for cybercrime in recent years. In 2023, Americans lost a staggering $3.94 billion to Bitcoin BTC/USD, Dogecoin DOGE/USD, Shiba Inu SHIB/USD, and other crypto investment scams, according to a report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This marked a 53% increase from the previous year’s $2.57 billion.
However, efforts are being made to combat such illegal activities. For instance, in January, the German state of Saxony seized over 50,000 Bitcoins acquired using the proceeds of pirated works. This was termed as the most extensive seizure of Bitcoins by law enforcement in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Furthermore, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland announced its intention to sell a substantial amount of Bitcoin, valued at approximately $132.5 million, which was seized in connection with the Silk Road scam investigation.
These incidents underscore the importance of robust security measures and user education in the cryptocurrency space.
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