Scams
Cross-border crypto scammers on the hit list for EU agencies
By the end of 2022, scammers shifted their focus to duping crypto investors who desperately tried to recoup their year-long losses. An international law enforcement operation led by European government agencies joined crypto entrepreneurs and businesses to curb cross-border crypto scams since July 2022, uncovering a criminal network operating through call centers. Europol and Eurojust, two EU agencies for law enforcement cooperation, joined authorities from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany and Serbia to investigate online investment fraud since June 2022. The investigation identified a criminal network that incurred over $2.1 million in losses — primarily for German investors. Call centres selling fake crypto taken down in Bulgaria, Serbia & Cyprus. The criminal organisations lured victims to...
Navigating the World of Crypto: Tips for Avoiding Scams
Despite the belief of many crypto enthusiasts that centralized exchanges (CEXs) are safer, history has often shown them to be rather vulnerable to attacks. Because these exchanges centralize the storage of users’ assets, they can be attractive targets for cybercriminals. If an exchange’s security measures are inadequate or successfully compromised, user assets may be stolen or lost. Another risk of centralized exchanges is the potential for fraud or mismanagement by their operators. Since CEXs may have a single point of control, they may be more susceptible to insider fraud or other forms of misconduct — which can lead to the loss of funds or other negative consequences for users. Over the last year, with the collapse of major centralized cryptocurrency platforms like FTX and Celsius, more...
$3.9 billion lost in the cryptocurrency market in 2022: Report
Immunefi, a bug bounty and security services platform for the Web3 ecosystem, published a report on Jan. 6 revealing that the crypto industry lost a total of 3.9 billion dollars in 2022. According to the report, hacks were found to be the main cause of the losses, accounting for 95.6% of the total, with fraud, scams, and rug pulls comprising the remaining 4.4%. Immunefi also found that decentralized finance (DeFi) was the most targeted sector, suffering 80.5% in losses, compared to centralized finance (CeFi) which suffered a loss of 19.5%. According to the report: “DeFi has suffered $3,180,023,103 in total losses in 2022, across 155 incidents. This number represents a 56.2% increase compared to 2021, when DeFi lost $2,036,015,896, in 107 incidents.” BNB and Ethereum were the mos...
DeFi sees exploits and exit scam drama in the last week of 2022: Finance Redefined
Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. For DeFi, the last week of 2022 saw another slew of exploits, insider job accusations and exit scam drama. It all started on Christmas, when Defrost Finance, a decentralized leveraged trading platform on the Avalanche blockchain, was exploited by a DeFi flash loan attack causing $12 million in losses. However, the hacker behind the attacks reportedly returned a portion of the funds the next day. Security analytic firm Certik looked into the chain of events and concluded that the $12 million of funds drained were a part of an exit scam. On Dec. 26, when the Defrost exploit saga was unfolding, Bitkeep, a multichain ...
Crypto’s recovery requires more aggressive solutions to fraud
It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that our industry is facing tough times. We’ve been in the midst of a “crypto winter” for some time now, with the prices of mainstays, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), tumbling. Likewise, monthly nonfungible token (NFT) trading volumes have fallen more than 90% since their multibillion dollar peak back in January of this year. Of course, these declines have only been exacerbated by the numerous black swan events rocking the crypto world, such as the FTX and Three Arrows Capital meltdowns. Taken together, it shouldn’t be a surprise that crypto is facing a trust deficit. While the destructive actions of reckless CEOs must be addressed and the individuals responsible for these events must be held accountable, our industry cannot stop there if w...
Metallica issues crypto scam alert before the 72 Seasons album launch
It’s quite evident that bad actors have left no stone unturned as legendary metal band Metallica warned fans against crypto giveaway scams right before their highly anticipated launch of its new album, 72 Seasons. Cashing in on the buzz around Metallica’s new album launch and upcoming tour, scammers have started targeting metalheads through social media impersonation. Metallica, however, was quick to point out “the ugly side of social media,” asking fans to steer away from Metallica Crypto giveaways, stating: “Let’s be as clear as possible. [Metallica crypto giveaways] are scams.” Sad but true, Cointelegraph recently highlighted a rise in front-running scams on YouTube, which according to blockchain security firm CertiK, has risen by 500% in one year. The ongoing Metallica scams contribute...
Crypto community weighs in on SBF’s ‘apology tour’
The former CEO of FTX, Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, has seemingly begun to embark on an apology tour to redeem his image a month after the sudden implosion of FTX, which revealed that the exchange had been improperly using customer and investor funds. OnNov. 30, Bankman-Fried made his first live public appearance since the collapse of FTX — answering a number of questions during the DealBook Summit in New York. During the interview, Bankman-Fried claimed to have “unknowingly commingled funds” between Alameda and customer funds at FTX. He shared: “I unknowingly commingled funds. […] I was frankly surprised by how big Alameda’s position was, which points to another failure of oversight on my part and failure to appoint someone to be chiefly in charge of that.” In another interv...
Polkadot incentivizes its community to fight scams through an “anti-scam bounty”
Polkadot, a protocol that connects blockchains, has announced its latest initiative to help its ecosystem fight scams. According to the company, relying on security-minded individuals within its community to fight scams has proven to be an effective method of safeguarding its ecosystem. To incentivize the members of its community to continue to do the work, Polkadot consistently rewards them with bounties paid in USDC. Polkadot shared that its bounty is currently managed by the general curators, which for now, consists of three community members, and two people from the W3F Anti-Scam department. However, in the long term, Polkadot hopes that the bounty will be eventually managed exclusively by the community. As part of the community-led anti-scam initiative, community mem...
Web3 sees 15 new scam smart contracts an hour: Solidus Labs
The Web3 and cryptocurrency space is seeing a significant amount of smart contract scams proliferating, with blockchain risk monitoring firm Solidus Labs saying it has detected on average 15 newly deployed scams every hour. Solidus Labs said on Oct. 27 that it had been monitoring 12 blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon and BNB Chain since Oct. 10, and in that time, had detected 188,525 smart contract scams. Former United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) director, Kathy Kraninger, who is now Solidus’ vice president of regulatory affairs, said in the statement that “while some of the big rug pulls and scams make the news […] the full picture stemming from our data shows the vast majority of these scams go unnoticed.” The firm also shed some light on the number...
Gate.io users at risk as scammers fake giveaway on hacked Twitter account
Hackers took over the official Twitter account of crypto exchange Gate.io, putting over 1 million users at risk of losing funds to an ongoing fraudulent Tether (USDT) giveaway. Social media platform Twitter serves as the most effective medium to reach the crypto community. As a result, the trend of hacking into official Twitter handles of verified accounts to promote scams is on the rise. Hackers of unknown origin took over Gate.io’s Twitter account and changed the website URL from Gate.io to gąte.com (https://xn--gte-ipa.com/) — a fraudulent website impersonating the exchange. The fake website is actively promoting a fake giveaway of 500,000 USDT while asking users to connect their wallets (such as MetaMask) to claim the rewards. Once a user connects their wallet to the fake website, the ...
Industry exec explains why NFT fraud protection falls on brand and not marketplaces
Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplaces should commit to combat fraudulent NFTs, but brands are far more responsible for protecting NFT investors, according to one industry executive. Brands that issue NFTs should be taking the first step to protecting themselves and potential investors from fraud, BrandShield CEO Yoav Keren said in an interview with Cointelegraph on Oct. 12. According to Keren, it’s more straightforward for a brand to recognize NFTs that were not released by the company itself rather than marketplaces like OpenSea or Rarible. NFT marketplaces usually have fewer insights into which brands are creating NFTs when they are launching and other details, the CEO noted. Although marketplaces should not be negligent of the reality of NFT fraud, it’s still a must for brands to keep th...
BNB Chain launches a new community-run security mechanism to protect users
BNB Chain, the native blockchain of Binance, has launched AvengerDAO, a new community-driven security initiative to help protect users against scams, malicious actors and possible exploits. The security-centric decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) has been developed in association with leading security firms and popular crypto projects such as Certik, TrustWallet, PancakeSwap and Opera, to name a few. The AvengerDAO security initiative mainly consists of three major components, namely a passive API system called Meter, a subscription-based alert system called Watch, and a programmable fund management system called Vault. When a user on the BNB Chain interacts with any applications or counterparties, AvengerDAO adds an additional layer of security. The Meter API system fetches s...
