Cryptocurrency phishing has experienced a significant increase over the past year, emerging as a distinct category with a 40 per cent year-on-year growth, totalling 5,040,520 detections in 2022 compared to 3,596,437 in 2021, as highlighted in a recent report released on Tuesday by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky.


The landscape of financial threats has evolved considerably in 2022, with traditional methods like banking PC and mobile malware attacks becoming less prevalent. Cybercriminals have shifted their focus to new areas, including the burgeoning crypto industry.


Despite the recent challenges faced by the cryptocurrency market, it continues to be perceived by many as a quick and easy way to get rich, making it an attractive target for scammers. "The allure of crypto as a means to make easy money with minimal effort still persists in the minds of many people, and scammers continue to exploit this by devising new and creative schemes to lure victims into their networks," said Olga Svistunova, a security expert at Kaspersky.


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While most cryptocurrency scams still rely on traditional techniques such as giveaway scams or fake wallet phishing pages, the report revealed that scammers are constantly innovating to increase their success rate, as evidenced by a recent fraudulent scheme that was discovered to be actively in use.


In this scheme, users receive an English-language PDF file via email claiming that they had registered on a cryptocurrency cloud mining platform a while ago and need to immediately withdraw a substantial amount of crypto from their inactive account. The PDF file contains a link to a fake mining platform, according to the report.


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To withdraw the supposed crypto amount, users are required to fill out a form with their personal information, including their card or account number, and then pay a commission, either through a crypto wallet or directly to a specified wallet address.


The report further highlighted that cryptocurrency phishing has impacted approximately one in every seven individuals surveyed, underscoring the widespread nature of this type of cybercrime.


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