Cryptocurrency wallet service providers are becoming increasingly advanced, but so are malicious individuals — indicating that the conflict between protection and risks is in a stalemate, states an executive from a hardware wallet company.
“It will perpetually be a cat and mouse scenario,” Ledger’s chief experience officer Ian Rogers remarked to Cointelegraph while depicting the ongoing competition among crypto wallet companies integrating new protection features and cybercriminals discovering more sophisticated methods to infiltrate victims’ wallets.
Rogers noted that, regrettably, the simplest scams are the most effective because fraudsters depend on individuals making basic errors.
“People disclose their 24-word phrases daily, so as long as that persists, they will target the low-cost tricks,” he stated, adding:
“Anyone requesting your 24 words is a criminal.”
Rogers pointed out a prevalent crypto scam where individuals are deceived by comments beneath “any tweet concerning crypto,” with phrases such as “DM me, and I’ll assist you.”
“You know that scammers are continually requesting your 24 words,” Rogers added. CertiK’s chief business officer Jason Jiang recently informed Cointelegraph that being vigilant about phishing schemes on social platforms can significantly enhance a user’s crypto safety.
Occasionally, fraudsters commandeer the accounts of prominent figures in the industry to share harmful links, complicating the process for users to identify the scam.
In September 2023, the account of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin was breached, resulting in a phony NFT giveaway that misled followers into clicking — ultimately draining over $691,000 from their wallets.
Source: CertiK
Rogers stressed that this will persist, just as malicious actors are not restricted to crypto — deceptions like counterfeit emails from the “Nigerian president” have been around for years.
“The expense of the attack is always relative to the value of the reward, right?” Rogers remarked. In 2024, crypto breaches rose by 15% compared to 2023, with more than $3 billion stolen.
Related: Hacker takes $8.4M from RWA restaking protocol Zoth
Meanwhile, pig butchering scams have surfaced as one of the most prevalent dangers to crypto investors, with losses on the Ethereum blockchain totaling $5.5 billion across 200,000 identified instances in 2024.
Pig butchering is a kind of phishing scheme that employs extended and intricate manipulation tactics to deceive investors into unwittingly transferring their assets to fraudulent crypto addresses.
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