Scam Sniffer analysts have disclosed alarming statistics, revealing that malicious actors siphoned off approximately $55 million worth of cryptocurrency and spawned more than 11,000 phishing websites in January alone.
In a recent thread on Feb. 9, Scam Sniffer highlighted a troubling trend observed throughout January, noting a surge in phishing attacks coinciding with increased activity within crypto communities, particularly following a series of airdrops in the preceding month.
According to their findings, scammers orchestrated the creation of over 11,400 phishing websites in January, masquerading as legitimate platforms such as Manta Network, Frame, SatoshiVM, AltLayer, Dymension, zkSync, Pyth, OpenSea, Optimism, and Blast, among others. Their efforts yielded substantial gains, with cybercriminals managing to abscond with nearly $55 million worth of crypto across Ethereum Virtual Machine-based networks, with the most severely affected victims losing a collective $17 million.
Scam Sniffer further revealed that the majority of these illicit activities occurred on the Ethereum mainnet, followed by Arbitrum, BNB, Optimism, and Polygon.
One common tactic employed by hackers involved exploiting the ERC-20 Permit function, tricking unsuspecting users into unwittingly transferring funds from their non-custodial wallets under the guise of legitimate operations. Additionally, perpetrators increasingly capitalized on the increaseAllowance function, allowing them to manipulate token allowances granted to malicious smart contracts.
The prevalence of fake comments on platforms like X, impersonating genuine projects such as Optimism and zkSync, exacerbated the risk of falling victim to scams, underscoring the persistent threat posed by fraudulent online entities.
As previously reported by crypto.news, illicit crypto addresses received over $24 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2023, signaling a decrease from the estimated $39.6 billion in 2022. Chainalysis data indicates a notable shift in the types of assets involved in crypto crime, with stablecoins now comprising the majority of illicit transaction volume.
