Social media platform X experienced a significant rise in fake accounts, resulting in over 57,000 individuals falling victim to crypto phishing scams in February. The latest report from Scam Sniffer revealed that these scams led to a loss of $46.8 million, with most victims being deceived by phishing comments from impersonated Twitter accounts.
Scam Sniffer’s findings indicated that the Ethereum mainnet was responsible for 78% of the total thefts, primarily targeting ERC-20 tokens, which accounted for 86% of all stolen assets. The report highlighted that users falling victim to Ethereum token thefts were often tricked into signing phishing signatures and transaction approvals, including Permit, IncreaseAllowance, and Uniswap Permit2. Furthermore, most scammers exploiting wallets have now turned to account abstraction wallets as token approval spenders, leveraging the enhanced functionality and smart contract compatibility offered by Ethereum wallets.
Despite an increase in the number of phishing victims compared to January, February witnessed a decrease in the total amount stolen compared to the previous month. Additionally, there was a significant drop in the number of victims losing over $1 million. Scammers often target social media accounts of prominent figures, resorting to tactics such as replying to posts with fake accounts that closely resemble the genuine ones or hacking legitimate accounts to post phishing links.
In February, the X account of MicroStrategy was hacked, resulting in the theft of approximately $440,000 worth of cryptocurrency. Similarly, Compound Finance, Rocket Pool, Blockchain Capital, and even Vitalik Buterin have all fallen victim to crypto phishers in recent months.
In December, Cointelegraph reported on the increasing use of “approval phishing” methods by crypto scammers to steal funds. This attack technique entails luring victims into signing transactions that grant scammers access to wallets, enabling them to drain the funds.
A recent report from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that Millennials are the most susceptible group to investment fraud.