Phishing scams, assaults disguised as respectable communication or web sites designed to steal funds and delicate info, value crypto customers over $12 million in August, up 72% from July, Web3 anti-scam service Rip-off Sniffer reported on Saturday.
Crypto phishing scams impacted 15,230 victims in August, a 67% enhance from July, with the only largest loss costing one consumer over $3 million, based on Rip-off Sniffer.
The Rip-off Sniffer crew additionally famous a “sharp escalation” in EIP-7702 signature scams. EIP-7702 is an Ethereum enchancment proposal that enables Externally Owned Accounts to behave as sensible contract wallets that may execute transactions and shift funds.
Scammers and hackers exploiting this performance drained over $5.6 million in August via three separate assaults, Rip-off Sniffer stated.
Scams and cybersecurity exploits proceed to be an issue in crypto, with over $163 million stolen in August via malicious exercise. The persistent risk is a reminder for crypto customers to stay vigilant and apply good anti-phishing and anti-scam safety measures.
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Good practices for staying protected in opposition to phishing scams
Losses from crypto hacks and scams crossed $3.1 billion within the first half of 2025 amid more and more subtle assault strategies.
Scammers usually goal customers by posing as respectable and well-known cryptocurrency exchanges, both establishing pretend web sites with comparable URL addresses to respectable exchanges or sending pretend communications to customers.
These communications embody emails, textual content messages, and even bodily letters despatched via the mail, designed to steal delicate consumer info, together with seed phrases for crypto wallets and passwords to on-line accounts.
Usually, the scammers will fake to be customer support brokers from respected exchanges, claiming that the consumer’s account is going through some form of risk or cybersecurity challenge and demand private info from the consumer, together with seed phrases.
Good practices to keep away from phishing scams embody checking URLs for tiny errors and bookmarking pages as an alternative of utilizing search engines like google or the search bar to entry web sites each time, verifying web site hyperlinks, and avoiding downloading attachments or clicking hyperlinks from unknown sources.
Phishing scams usually comprise misspelled phrases or grammatical errors, and any of those errors is a pink flag; customers ought to learn via messages rigorously to detect such errors.
Crypto and Web3 customers must also use digital personal networks (VPNs) to masks their IP addresses and bodily areas, by no means give out seed phrases or passwords, and allow two-factor authentication for delicate on-line accounts.
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