Crypto thefts hit $163M in August as hackers shift strategy

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Crypto hackers and scammers stole implicit $163 cardinal from the crypto abstraction successful August crossed 16 abstracted attacks — with a societal engineering onslaught against a Bitcoiner accounting for the lion’s stock of losses.

Blockchain information steadfast PeckShield said successful an X station connected Monday that August’s losses are a 15% summation compared to July, which lone recorded $142 million, though it’s down 47% twelvemonth connected year.

Cybersecurity experts told Coinelegraph the summation successful August was driven by hackers shifting their efforts to high-value targets and the emergence successful crypto prices.

Crypto hackers ore connected high-value targets

Speaking to Cointelegraph, PeckShield said determination was a strategical displacement by hackers past month, arsenic they are present concentrating connected centralized exchanges and different high-value idiosyncratic targets.

Two incidents successful peculiar inflated the full for August. A Bitcoiner who was the unfortunate of a societal engineering attack mislaid 783 Bitcoin (BTC), worthy $91 cardinal astatine the time, successful a azygous transaction aft atrocious actors masqueraded arsenic a crypto speech and hardware wallet support.

The different was the Turkish crypto speech Btcturk, which saw nearly $50 cardinal successful crypto stolen aft an attacker accessed its blistery wallets. This was besides the 2nd large information breach successful the past year.

However, PeckShield said the fig of hacks has been trending downward, with 16 recorded successful August, compared to 17 successful July and 20 successful June.

“Looking astatine the broader representation implicit the past 8 months, the full fig of hacks has shown a decreasing trend. This is affirmative quality and suggests improvements successful wide ecosystem security.”

Crypto terms booms are playing a origin too

Hank Huang, CEO of Kronos Research, told Cointelegraph that crypto exploits often emergence alongside crypto prices, creating high-value rewards for premier targets.

Both Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) experienced caller all-time highs successful August. Bitcoin crossed implicit $124,000 connected Aug. 14, portion Ether stormed past $4,946 connected Aug. 24.

“August’s surge highlights however attackers are zeroing successful connected centralized wallets utilizing blase phishing and societal engineering to exposure operational weaknesses,” Huang added.

Total losses were trending downward, with $176 cardinal mislaid to hacks successful June, a 54.2% alteration from May erstwhile scammers made disconnected with $385 million, and $142 cardinal mislaid successful July.

However, Huang speculates that losses could support rising for the remainder of the year, “driven not conscionable by soaring crypto prices but adjacent much by the dilatory and dependable lag successful information exertion improvements to forestall these attacks.”

New tech could cushion the blow to crypto

Huang besides said determination could beryllium caller exertion and amended information measures connected the horizon, which would apt assistance curb losses successful the agelong term.

“As emerging exertion advances, AI-driven improvements and stronger information models should assistance cushion the interaction successful the future,” helium said.

Meanwhile, PeckShield said precocious worth targets, specified arsenic corporations and individuals with large crypto holdings should guarantee beardown information measures are successful place.

“We urge that high-value targets—both corporations and individuals—should beryllium progressively vigilant and proactively instrumentality robust information measures.”

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