Just 5 months into the year 2020, about 1.4 billion dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency has been stolen by crypto hackers and fraudsters. This report was given by crypto intelligence company, CipherTrace on the 2nd of June, 2020. About 98% of the total amount has been discovered to be by embezzlement and fraud while the remaining 2% done by direct thefts and hacks.
In 2019, the total amount stolen was about 4.5 billion dollars, however, this figure is set to be surpassed this year. CipherTrace implied that the majority of these hacks were perpetrated by insiders, mostly employees of crypto exchanges and other crypto-related businesses.
Crypto scammers are using the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to scam more crypto owners as new ransomware, phishing campaigns and darknet market have been created to fit the period. Scammers now make use of email campaigns impersonating the CDC, WHO, the Red Cross and other COVID-19 related organizations.
Some hackers have gone as far as designing coronavirus related websites and apps. This is simply to gain access to users phones in order to install ransomware and then make users pay a certain amount in crypto if they want their files decrypted.
New markets have also opened up on the darknet where these scammers sell supposed coronavirus protective gear, test kits and cures.
Source: Cointelegraph
