Skip to main content

Crypto phishing scams tripled compared to last year to 6.6% of all phishing attacks

 


Phishing Attacks 2021

In 2021, cryptocurrency was responsible for only 2% of phishing attacks, as shown in the chart below. The dominant verticals were financial services, social media, and SaaS/webmail, which together contributed to over 68% of attacks.


However, the first quarter of 2021 was a long time ago in the cryptocurrency world. The market cap of the industry was just under $800 billion at the start of this quarter (it reached nearly $2 trillion after explosive growth).


So how do these numbers compare to the first quarter of 2022? Crypto market cap was $2.2 trillion. $ at the start of the quarter (and exiting the quarter at $2.1 trillion, ie it was relatively stable - the bloodbath started in the second quarter). As the crypto market is much larger and more established - the market cap was 2.8x larger in 2022 than it was at the start of 2021 - this ties it to the fact that the percentage of phishing attacks has increased by more than that in the last year Tripled from 2% to 6.6%.


The full chart showing all industries can be seen below. It shows the current position of how cryptocurrencies are performing compared to other industries.

Development compared to other sectors

Another finding of the figures is the fact that phishing attacks on the payments sector increased by 6.1%, although the industry has not moved much in terms of its overall size.


This provides further context to the growth of crypto numbers as the sector is not dissimilar to payments, suggesting it may become more of a target for phishing attacks. Nonetheless, the fact that the number of attacks targeting payments has soared is far more troubling than developments in cryptocurrencies, which have good reason to point to the growing size of the industry and the fact that regulation has yet to catch up.

 


Industry context size

However, given the size of the cryptocurrency, which now ranks above several industries in the study, this has to be taken into account - the size of the market obviously affects how common phishing attacks are.


In fact, the SaaS/Webmail industry has a significantly bigger problem than the crypto industry, accounting for 20% of attacks and an estimated industry value of under $200B. The spread of attacks on social media also surpasses the crypto industry with a value of $200 billion and a share of 12.5% ​​(in the previous year this figure was still over 20%). The payments industry also compares poorly to cryptocurrencies, as the chart shows.

 


Conclusion

First, to assess what it all means, the move from 2% to 6.6% over the last year is roughly commensurate with the industry's growth and is to be expected. Additionally, crypto doesn't appear to be an outlier compared to other industries, as the number of attacks compared to industry size lags significantly behind others like SaaS, social media, and payments.


So the data suggests that while cryptocurrencies remain a problem, they are unfairly given the reputation of the Wild West.


There is no denying that the crypto industry definitely has a dark side, albeit a tiny fraction of the innovations and advances being made elsewhere. And it's that dark side that will hopefully be curbed and regulators will keep a close eye on. However, when you look at the numbers and compare it to other industries, crypto is not alone, and the good far outweighs the bad.

My Top Picks
Honeygain - Passive earner that pays in BTC or PayPal
MandalaExchange -The Best no KYC crypto Exchange! 
BetFury - Play And Earn BFG for daily Bitcoin and ETH dividends!
Pipeflare - Faucet that pays in ZCash and Matic, Games pay in DAI
Womplay - Mobile dApp gaming platform that rewards in EOS and Bitcoin
Cointiply - The #1 Crypto Earning Site
Torum - Join the latest Social Network and earn TRM for Free! 
LiteCoinPay - The #1 FaucetPay earner for Litecoin 
LBRY/Odysee - YouTube Alternative that lets you earn Money by viewing videos!
FaucetPay - The #1 Microwallet Platform
FREEBTC - The #1 FaucetPay earner for Satoshi's
FaucetCrypto - An earning/faucet site that pays out instantly
FireFaucet - An earning site that pays better for some than Cointiply
DogeFaucet - Dogecoin Faucet
xFaucet - BTC, ETH, LTC, Doge, Dash, Tron, DGB, BCH, BNB, ZEC, FEY - Claim every 5 minutes
Konstantinova - BTC, ETH, LTC, Doge, Dash, Tron, DGB, BNB, ZEC, USDT, FEY, 25 Claims Daily

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From offchain to offchain: Statechains meets Lightning

  Without a doubt, the most significant off-chain Bitcoin solution is the Lightning network. But in its wake, the statechain has emerged as an intriguing replacement. There is currently a proposal to link the two offchain networks. From an ocean, for example, you can see sunbeams glistening in the water, waves rippling, and possibly a jellyfish drifting toward the light. But you only see a small portion of it. The distance from the sea's surface to its bottom is hundreds of meters. It has dozens of different fish species swimming in it, crabs and starfish crawling on the bottom, shells clinging to rocks, and sea plants climbing up. A completely new world starts where your gaze diverges. You can picture a blockchain like Bitcoin, just like the sea. What you see on the outside is only a small portion of what is actually there; the set of UTXOs (coins) and transaction history that full nodes store are just the beginning of a much larger world. It's the plan, at least. With Bitcoin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Phishing attack on popular crypto sites tries to empty wallets

  Several major crypto sites such as Etherscan, CoinGecko, DeFi Pulse, and others report malicious pop-ups scammers use to try to trick users into connecting their MetaMask wallets. The phishing attack came from a domain displaying the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) logo. "We are investigating the root cause of this attack to fix the threat as soon as possible," CoinGecko founder Bobby Ong tweeted. The phishing attack appears to have been triggered by a malicious ad script from Coinzilla, a crypto ad network, according to CoinGecko. Etherscan also advises its users not to confirm any transactions that may appear on the website. The attackers attempted to use the hype around the “bored monkeys” non-fungible tokens (NFT) to gain access to the cryptocurrencies of unsuspecting website visitors. Although the websites affected by the scam attempt have reacted in the last few hours and deactivated the advertising pop-up, it is still recommended not to connect your MetaMask wallet to ne...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs stolen through phishing on Instagram

  Bored Ape Yacht Club ( BAYC ) developers announced on Monday that hackers have hijacked the official Instagram page of the popular NFT collection and posted links to a fake airdrop. Crypto enthusiasts who connected their MetaMask wallet to the rogue website subsequently had their Ape NFTs stolen. Apparently, the attack was planned to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the BAYC collection. This increased the "perceived credibility" of the phishing link. About 100 NFTs are said to have been stolen in the phishing attack . According to CoinGecko data , the minimum price for a BAYC NFT is 139 Ether ( ETH ) or $400,726. So if reports are correct, over $40 million worth of NFTs were stolen in the attack. These numbers are only the lowest estimate, however, as they are based on the lowest price.  At the time of writing, it was still unclear how the hackers gained access to BAYC's official Instagram account. Social media users have pointed out the importance of two-fact...
Post a Comment
Read more