- The crypto industry is still in the process of getting over the losses of last year when crypto attackers brutally stole more than $2.3 billion worth of virtual assets.
- The duration of the period in which victims are lured lasts between one and two weeks for 35% of the users and around 10% of scams take up to three months.
- The rapid increase in the number of AI use and AI-based chatbots present online are aiding hackers in easing their work.
A type of online romance scam, Pig butchering scams has become one of the most common scams to lure crypto investors. This particular kind of scam has reported billions of dollars of losses over 200k identified cases in the last year, as per the report released by security company Cyvers.
In this scam, an extended and complex manipulation practice is performed to trick investors and trap them into voluntarily sending their assets to a fake crypto address. This scam has looted more than $5.5 billion from 200k identified wallets in the last year, as mentioned in the report.
In the list of the top 10 most impacted platforms, Cyvers recognized three of the five biggest centralized exchanges including a bank supporting cryptocurrency, and an institutional trading platform.
The biggest threat to the Industry
The crypto industry is still in the process of getting over the losses of the last year when crypto attackers brutally stole more than $2.3 billion worth of virtual assets in 165 incidents, indicating a 40% rise contrasted from the previous year when the total losses estimated to be $1.69 billion.
The vice President of GTM strategy at Cyvers, Michael Pearl mentions that pig butchering scams are considered to be the biggest threat to the industry as compared to any other threat. He further added that even though it is noteworthy that it is dissimilar to other hacks, it is very difficult to differentiate between pig butchering and investment scams.
As per Pearl, Ponzi, romance is mostly a mix of all, and what makes it the biggest threat is the grooming element. The duration of the period in which victims are lured lasts between one and two weeks for 35% of the users.
At the same time, around 10% of scams take up to three months, as per the data revealed by Cyvers. The alarming bell rang when around 75% of victims lost more than half of their net worth mainly to this scam. The majority of the persons influenced by this scam hailed from the age of 30 to 49.
Crypto platform shedding blood of users
The rapid increase in the number of AI use and AI-based chatbots present online are aiding hackers in easing their work. Also, the effect of these schemes goes beyond retail investors as per the co-founder and chief executive officer of Cyvers, Deddy Lavid.
He further went on to mention that crypto platforms are mainly centralized exchanges and are shedding the blood of millions and fighting a reputational crisis.
