About a third of crypto users in the U.S. said they fell victim to scam schemes involving the theft of digital assets. And about the same number claimed to have lost crypto due to a hacked account on an exchange.
According to the Crypto Threats report by Kaspersky, a cybersecurity provider, about a third of U.S. users had their digital assets stolen.
Kaspersky analysts surveyed about 2,000 American adults in October 2022, finding that 24% of respondents owned crypto or digital assets. Of those, 33% said they had fallen victim to a fraudulent app, website, or crypto-related investment scam resulting in stolen cryptocurrency assets.
Analysts discovered that the victims lost:
- less than $100 — 3%;
- $100 to $500 — 22%;
- $500 to $1,000 — 17%;
- $1,000 to $10,000 — 25%;
- $10,000 to $100,000 — 12%;
- $100,000 to $1 million — 15%.
The average stolen assets from one user are estimated at $97,583.
The report also indicates that 32% of surveyed crypto users have lost access to their accounts where their cryptocurrency assets are stored. However, around 27% of them store crypto on an exchange but don’t use additional account security measures.
Analysts also found that crypto users didn’t always report that their assets had been stolen. For example, only 47% of users between 18 and 24 reported thefts, while users over 55 reported such incidents five times less frequently.
Kaspersky analysts said the main reason for such a high percentage of victims was users’ lack of general knowledge about protecting their assets. The report also said that there was a lack of regulation in the industry, and the government didn’t seek to tell users about ways to take care of cryptocurrency, as, for example, the Australian government did. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) released a document to help users recognize crypto scams and protect themselves from them.
The most vulnerable area of Web 3.0 is social media, and the number of fraudulent crypto websites increased by 335% in 2022. Scammers actively use the Twitter botnet to create hype around fraudulent projects or hack Twitter accounts of celebs and prominent people in the crypto community.
For example, the other day, it became known that scammers managed to compromise the Twitter account of Dante Disparte, Head of Global Policy at Circle. Attackers promoted a loyalty program for USDC users through Disparte’s account, which was fraudulent in nature. The hack was discovered within hours, after which the scammers’ tweets were deleted. There was no information about the affected users.
Scammers improve methods of stealing cryptocurrencies, inventing new ways of phishing and perfecting fraud schemes.
