By Bakare Fathia Eniola
Crypto investors lost $664m to hackers in the first half of the year, marking a more than 50 per cent increase compared to the same period last year, according to data from DefiLlama.
The largest aggregator for decentralised finance stated that the bulk of those losses came from phishing attacks and compromised private keys.
It noted that crypto hackers were often skilled bad actors, who work for cybercrime syndicates, such as North Korea’s state-sponsored Lazarus Group, which was suspected of having stolen billions in crypto.
DefiLlama stated that high-powered hacking tools were not usually available to the army of amateur hackers on the internet.
However, experts are raising concerns about the growing threat of open-source infostealers, malicious software designed to steal sensitive financial information from victims’ computers.
These infostealers target crypto wallet passwords, private keys, and other sensitive data.
This year, compromised private keys have led to some of the biggest crypto hacks, including the theft of $305m from the DMM Bitcoin exchange.
Globally, crypto scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with fraudsters employing multi-level marketing scams, crypto fraud, Ponzi schemes, fake ICOs, and phishing attacks to dupe victims.
The IT expert cautioned that scammers constantly innovate, utilising tactics such as replacement-by-fee attacks to avoid detection.