Under the spotlight of the surging popularity and price of cryptocurrencies, scammers succeeded in booking over $8 million in funds from the victim by phishing attempts.
A recently published report by Scamsniffer quotes that bad actors gathered around $9.38 million in November 2024 by defrauding 9,200 innocent people.
The further argues that adopting a range of best practices, such as confirming each signature request and refraining from making hasty decisions during transactions.
The also quotes a specific event in which an individual lost stETH around $661,000, The losses occurred against a backdrop of evolving scam tactics, as malicious actors employed increasingly sophisticated methods to exploit unsuspecting victims.
The YTD data shows that the industry has lost $1.48 billion in 2024 due to 209 hack incidents and rug pull events, reflecting a 15% decline from the $1.7 billion lost during the same period in the previous year.
What Other Reports Suggest?
In a recently published report by Immunefi, it notes that 2 major incidents were responsible for the bulk of November’s $71 million in losses. DeFi project Thala Labs incurred $25.5 million in damages, while the meme coin trading terminal DEXX faced a $21 million loss.
It is worth noting that centralized exchanges remain the primary target of such scammers and bad actors, continuing to be a primary target for crypto hackers, exchanges have been responsible for half of the crypto market’s losses in 2024, amounting to 721 USD million.
The risk to centralized exchanges notably increased in the Q3 in the ongoing year, with 72 percent of entire crypto losses attributed to CeFi hacks. The hacking incident of WazirX is termed to be one of the most disastrous events to date.
The hackers based out in North Korea remain one of the most prominent groups behind such illicit activities, accounting for over 45% of crypto-related thefts each year.
In the opening of August 2024, the Ronin Bridge, a sidechain of Axie Infinity built on Ethereum, faced a series of attacks. The most recent breach resulted in the theft of $9.33 million, marking the second major attack on the bridge after the $266 million hack in March 2022.
The total amount stolen saw a significant decline, dropping by 53% compared to October’s $20.2 million and September’s $45.8 million. However, analysts highlight that the number of victims remains alarmingly high.
They also warned of the ongoing evolution of phishing threats, with the notorious Inferno Drainer scam being replaced by the emerging Angel Drainer attack technique.
The case is reminiscent of an incident with billionaire Mark Cuban, who faced a comparable security breach earlier in June.
As per experts, phishing was the quarter’s most destructive attack method, and fake accounts on X were the primary way victims were directed to phishing sites, followed closely by misleading Google advertisements as the second most prevalent tactic.