New Report Reveals the Role of Stablecoins in Crypto Crimes Increased in 2023
A Chainalysis report has identified stablecoins as the instrument for supporting the biggest quantity of illegal crypto trades. The report claims that during 2022 and 2023, suspicious cryptocurrency traders performed the biggest portion of illegal transactions in the form of stablecoins.
The report suggests that criminals have been looking for alternatives for digital currency trading outside of Bitcoin. The cybercrime report further noted that between 2018 and 2021, Bitcoin remained the top choice for conducting illegal transactions.
However, illegal trading volumes inflated in stablecoins during 2022 and 2023. The report also noted that the rise was attributed to increasing trading activity of stablecoins including fair use.
However, regardless of various illegal activities such as dark net sales and ransomware payments heavily utilized Bitcoin. At the same time, analyst opines that criminals prefer stablecoins for carrying out activities such as scams and transactions associated with sanctioned platforms.
The Involvement of Sanctioned Crypto Firms in Illicit Activities
The report suggested that sanctioned firms in various legal jurisdictions supported $14.9 billion in trading volume for 2023. The number accounts for 61.5% of all illegal transactions taking place for that year.
The report has noted that some of these firms are sanctioned by the Treasury Office of Foreign Asset Control which has also affected forums operating outside of the jurisprudence of the federal agency. CertiK, another blockchain security firm reported that hackers’ revenues decreased by 51% during 2023.
Hacking Incidents Plunged in 2023
This was highlighted as a positive step as per co-founder Ronghui Gu. At the same time, the Chainalysis report also shared hacking revenues that dropped by 54.3% while scam bounties dropped by 29.2%. On account of this, the statistics indicate that the total detectable illegal transaction volume indicated an overall decline.
Earlier this month, the blockchain security analytics firm reported that its X account was hijacked by Forbes impersonators. CertiK administrators reported on 5th January that a verified representative contacted one of their employees using phishing.
Blockchain Analytics Firm CertiK Removes Compromised Posts on X
CertiK consulted with cybersecurity firm Cybers to recover the compromised X account. The platform notified followers regarding the incident. Hackers were able to reach CertiK’s social media account through phishing. The hack resulted in unauthorized posts added to its official X account.
However, the administrators were able to recover the account shortly after and delete those posts. One of the compromised posts suggested that Uniswap servers were compromised and the investors on the platform had to disconnect through revoke.cash.
However, the link added to the post was a fake URL that could led to theft of cryptocurrencies from digital wallets. CertiK managed to detect a hack attempt within 7 minutes and initiated a prompt recovery process. The investigation team concluded the report after 37 minutes of point zero and contains a further spread of the breach.
The investigation team pointed out similarities with another hacking incident where Forbes impersonators asked targeted X users to connect their accounts with the Calendly app as a time management application.
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