Crypto users lost $47 million due to phishing over the month

The share of ERC20 tokens in the total volume of stolen coins amounted to 86%

11.03.2024 - 12:20

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What’s new? According to experts from the analytics platform Scam Sniffer, 57 066 crypto users lost almost $47 million last month due to phishing attacks. The share of the Ethereum blockchain in the total number of thefts is 78%, the main stolen assets are tokens of the ERC20 standard: their share in the total amount of stolen coins is 86%. At the same time, compared to January, the number of victims who lost more than $1 million decreased by 75%.

Source: Twitter.com

What else is known? According to analysts, most of the attacks were carried out by luring victims to phishing websites through anonymous accounts on the X social network. The vast majority of ERC20 tokens are stolen as a result of signing malicious transactions.

In turn, scammers are increasingly beginning to use wallets with account abstraction functionality, which allows an account to be programmed similar to a smart contract, to interact with victims’ addresses.

At the end of the third quarter of last year, Beosin auditors reported that the share of phishing attacks in the total volume of damage for the reporting period amounted to 7.,4%.

Thus, in September, the market maker lost $24 million in cryptocurrencies due to phishing. The user gave the fraudster the right to dispose of tokens by signing transactions “increaseAllowance.”

On January 22 this year, an unknown person lost $4,2 million in Aave blockchain coins as a result of a phishing attack. The user signed transactions with ERC20 standard assets several times, which led to the loss of funds.

In a new report, Scam Sniffer experts note that the thefts of ERC20 tokens in February were mostly carried out using “increaseAllowance,” “Permit,” and “Uniswap Permit2” transactions.

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