Crypto Users Lost $300 Million to Phishing Scams in 2023
Scam Sniffer, a cybersecurity firm, recently published a report regarding total phishing scams taking place during 2023. The statistics reveal that phishing sites were able to place paid adverts on Google and X that violated their marketing guidelines. Analysts informed investors that around 324 thousand cryptocurrency investors were targeted by phishing scammers last year.
Using these tactics, scammers were able to siphon around $300 million in the form of various types of digital currencies. As per the report, a majority portion of these scams happened in the form of wallet drains.
The firm further noted that phishing remained one of the fastest-growing scam trends during 2023. The report also ranked the most active drainers in terms of their impact placing Inferno affecting 134K investors.
Scam Sniffer Report
Various drainers closed down as per Scam Sniffer. However, independent phishing gangs started to look for new targets elsewhere. The report further notes that there is a wide array of platforms where scammers visit to defraud new victims.
Monkey Drainer, one of the most noteworthy drainers, affected high-profile wallet account holders. However, it shut down operations but recommended a new scam service for its illicit users.
Monkey Drainer Stole $16 Million in Crypto
As per the report, Monkey Drainer stole around $16 million in digital assets before shutting down. On the other hand, Inferno Drainer swiped around $81 million before closing down. Angel Drainer was ranked as the third largest drainer that replaced Inferno Drainer after it concluded operations.
At the same time, Scam Sniffer also shared the route and method of infiltration used by drainers to gain traffic. As per the report, scammers target the official Discord server and X accounts and start uploading phishing links.
Phishing Scam Tactics
As per the report, most phishing sites generate organic traffic using fake airdrops of cryptocurrencies or NFTs. At the same time, they can hack expired Discord URLs and add spam comments and mentions on social media platforms such as X. At the same time, scammers are able to circumvent the advert guidelines of Google and X.
Scam Sniffer informed the investors that phishing sites have been able to publish paid Google Search and X adverts that violate the legal parameters of these platforms. There are also scam-as-a-service platforms such as Inferno Drainer that list tools and wallet-draining services for hire.
However, the platform officially closed down shutter last year following a Telegram post. The platform gained popularity in 2023 and gained traction after Monkey Drainer was closed. The platform claimed 20% of the total amount its users were able to steal and reported $70 million in bounty taken from 100K targets.
Tokenhell produces content exposure for over 5,000 crypto companies and you can be one of them too! Contact at info@tokenhell.com if you have any questions. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Some of the posts on this website are guest posts or paid posts that are not written by Tokenhell authors (namely Crypto Cable , Sponsored Articles and Press Release content) and the views expressed in these types of posts do not reflect the views of this website. Tokenhell is not responsible for the content, accuracy, quality, advertising, products or any other content or banners (ad space) posted on the site. Read full terms and conditions / disclaimer.
