It’s quite evident that bad actors have left no stone unturned as legendary metal band Metallica warned fans against crypto giveaway scams right before their highly anticipated launch of its new album, 72 Seasons. Cashing in on the buzz around Metallica’s new album launch and upcoming tour, scammers have started targeting metalheads through social media impersonation. Metallica, however, was quick to point out “the ugly side of social media,” asking fans to steer away from Metallica Crypto giveaways, stating: “Let’s be as clear as possible. [Metallica crypto giveaways] are scams.” Sad but true, Cointelegraph recently highlighted a rise in front-running …

Malware, ransomware attacks and phishing are not the only scourges of the crypto industry as the Metaverse could become a big target next year, according to cybersecurity experts. In its “Consumer Cyberthreats: Predictions for 2023” report on Nov. 28, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky forewarned that there will be greater exploitation of the Metaverse due to lacking data protection and moderation rules. Kaspersky acknowledged there are currently only a handful of metaverse platforms, but the number of metaverses is set to expand in the coming years and the market could even top $50 billion by 2026. That expansion will entice cyber criminals …

Bitcoin (BTC) is forecasted to be a less enticing payment choice by cybercriminals as regulations and tracking technologies improve, thwarting their ability to safely move funds. Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky in a Nov. 22 report noted that ransomware negotiations and payments would rely less on Bitcoin as a transfer of value as an increase in digital asset regulations and tracking technologies will force cybercriminals to rotate away from Bitcoin and into other methods. As reported by Cointelegraph, ransomware payments using crypto topped $600 million in 2021 and some of the biggest heists such as the Colonial Pipeline attack demanded BTC as …

A faked video of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has circulated on Twitter attempting to scam investors affected by the exchange’s bankruptcy. Created using programs to emulate Bankman-Fried’s likeness and voice, the poorly made “deepfake” video attempts to direct users to a malicious site under the promise of a “giveaway” that will “double your cryptocurrency.” Over the weekend, a verified account posing as FTX founder SBF posted dozens of copies of this deepfake video offering FTX users "compensation for the loss" in a phishing scam designed to drain their crypto wallets pic.twitter.com/3KoAPRJsya — Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) …

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has warned that Google search results are still promoting crypto phishing and scamming websites. Despite Google’s strict policies on crypto marketing for its ads service, scammers have still been slipping through the cracks over the past few years. At times, scam websites have even been displayed higher than legitimate crypto and blockchain projects. In an Oct. 27 tweet, CZ warned that when searching CoinMarketCap on Google, phishing sites with an “ad” tag were showing up in front of the actual website. “This affects users adding smart contract addresses to MetaMask using these phishing sites. We …

An alleged phishing scammer going by the pseudonym “Monkey Drainer” has reportedly swiped around $1 million worth of Ether (ETH) via dubious copycat NFT minting websites this week. Well-known blockchain sleuth ZachXBT was one of the first to track and highlight the activity, outlining on Oct. 26 that: “Over the past 24 hrs ~700 ETH ($1m) has been stolen by the phishing scammer known as Monkey Drainer. They recently surpassed 7300 transactions from their drainer wallet after being around for only a few months.” “The two largest victims over the past day include 0x02a & 0x626 who collectively lost $370k …

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX will provide around $6 million in compensation to victims of a phishing scam that allowed hackers to conduct unauthorized trades on certain FTX users’ accounts. FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried posted in a Twitter thread on Oct. 23 that the exchange generally doesn’t award compensation to its users “phished by fake versions of other companies in the space” but in this case, it would compensate users. Bankman-Fried said that this was a “one-time thing” and FTX would “not do this going forward.” “THIS IS NOT A PRECEDENT,” he wrote, clarifying it was only the accounts of …

Reducing the amount of hacking by improving cybersecurity should be considered a top priority for the crypto industry, said Kim Grauer, director of research of blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis. As pointed out by the firm, this year could outpace 2021 in terms of crypto stolen through hacks. The vast majority of these exploits have been targeting the field of decentralized finance. “This can't go on in the industry because people are going to lose faith in investing in DeFi platforms”, Grauer said in an interview with Cointelegraph. Unlike centralized exchanges, which have improved their resiliency to crypto hacks, decentralized protocols …

French authorities have reportedly utilized research from pseudonymous blockchain sleuth ZachXBT to charge five people on suspicion of stealing $2.5 million worth of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) via phishing scams. According to an Oct. 12 report from the Agence France Presse (AFP) shared by Barron’s, the alleged fraudsters built a website that masqueraded as a service that animates the static artwork from people’s Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) NFTs. Unfortunately for the victims, they had their credentials swiped and their NFTs stolen via the phishing website instead. The five young suspects are said to be …

Cybersecurity analyst Serpent has revealed his picks for the most dastardly crypto and non-fungible token (NFT) scams currently active on Twitter. The analyst, who has 253,400 followers on Twitter, is the founder of artificial intelligence and community-powered crypto threat mitigation system, Sentinel. In a 19-part thread posted on Aug. 21, Serpent outlined how scammers target inexperienced crypto users through the use of copycat websites, URLs, accounts, hacked verified accounts, fake projects, fake airdrops, and plenty of malware. One of the more worrisome strategies comes amid a recent spate of crypto phishing scams and protocol hacks. Serpent explains that the “Crypto …

2022 has been a lucrative year for hackers preying on the nascent Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) spaces, with more than $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency fleeced in several high-profile hacks to date. Cross-chain protocols have been particularly hard hit, with Axie Infinity’s $650 million Ronin Bridge hack accounting for a significant portion of stolen funds this year. The pillaging continued into the second half of 2022 as cross-chain platform Nomad saw $190 million drained from wallets. The Solana ecosystem was the next target, with hackers gaining access to private keys of some 8000 wallets that resulted in $5 million …

A sophisticated phishing campaign targeting liquidity providers (LPs) of the Uniswap v3 protocol has seen attackers make off with at least $4.7 million worth of Ether (ETH). However, the community is reporting the losses could be even greater. MetaMask security researcher Harry Denley was one of the first to raise the alarm bells of the attack, telling his 13,000 Twitter followers on Monday that 73,399 addresses had been sent malicious ERC-20 tokens to steal their assets. ⚠️ As of block 151,223,32, there has been 73,399 address that have been sent a malicious token to target their assets, under the false …