The financial threat landscape has seen significant changes in 2022. While attacks using traditional financial threats such as banking PC and mobile malware have become less common, cybercriminals shifted their attention to new areas, including the crypto industry. According to a report by Kaspersky, this increase in crypto phishing may have grown due to the downturn of the crypto market in 2022. This data correlates with users’ experiences with cryptocurrency threats explored by Kaspersky earlier in 2023. The report claims that every seventh person surveyed was affected by a cryptocurrency phishing attack.
Cryptocurrency phishing scams: Numbers
In 2022, cryptocurrency phishing rose significantly and was included as a separate category, demonstrating 40% YoY growth with 5,040,520 detections of crypto phishing in 2022 compared to 3,596,437 in 2021.
Cryptocurrency phishing scams: How they work
Although most crypto scams feature traditional tricks such as giveaway scams or fake wallet phishing pages, a recent active fraudulent scheme discovered by Kaspersky shows scammers are constantly coming up with new techniques to ensure their success.
In this campaign, the user receives a PDF file in English by mail, stating that they allegedly registered on a cryptocurrency cloud mining platform a long time ago and need to urgently withdraw a lot of crypts since their account is inactive.
Cryptocurrency phishing scams: Numbers
In 2022, cryptocurrency phishing rose significantly and was included as a separate category, demonstrating 40% YoY growth with 5,040,520 detections of crypto phishing in 2022 compared to 3,596,437 in 2021.
Cryptocurrency phishing scams: How they work
Although most crypto scams feature traditional tricks such as giveaway scams or fake wallet phishing pages, a recent active fraudulent scheme discovered by Kaspersky shows scammers are constantly coming up with new techniques to ensure their success.
In this campaign, the user receives a PDF file in English by mail, stating that they allegedly registered on a cryptocurrency cloud mining platform a long time ago and need to urgently withdraw a lot of crypts since their account is inactive.
The file contains a link to a fake mining platform. To withdraw the crypt, the user must fill out a form with personal information, including the card or account number, and pay a commission, in this case, through a crypto wallet or directly to the specified wallet address.
Cryptocurrency phishing scams: Recommended safety measures
Kaspersky experts has also recommend that users should follow these safety protocols to protect themselves from a crypto phishing attack:
- Be cautious of phishing scams: Scammers often use phishing emails or fake websites to trick people into revealing their login credentials or private keys. Always double-check the URL of the website and don’t click on any suspicious links.
- Don’t share your private keys: your private keys unlock your cryptocurrency wallet. Keep them private and never share them with anyone.
- Educate yourself: stay informed about the latest cyber threats and best practices to keep your cryptocurrency safe. The more you know about protecting yourself, the better equipped you’ll be to prevent cyber-attacks.
- Research before investing: before investing in any cryptocurrency, research the project and the team behind it thoroughly. Check the project’s website, white paper, and social media channels to ensure that the project is legitimate.
- Use security solutions: a reliable security solution will protect your devices from various types of threats.
Kaspersky Premium prevents all known and unknown cryptocurrency fraud, as well as unauthorized use of your computer’s processing power to mine cryptocurrency.
For all the latest Technology News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
Denial of responsibility! NewsBit.us is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
