🌎 Crypto Phishing Losses Drop 48% to $5.32M

Crypto phishing losses saw a significant decline in February, with a 48% drop to $5.32 million, according to data from ScamSniffer. This marks the third consecutive monthly decline, following losses of $10.25 million in January and $23.58 million in December.

Phishing Attacks in February

A total of 7,442 victims lost their crypto funds due to phishing attacks in February, compared to 9,220 in January. The biggest losses came from targeted scams, including address poisoning, permit scams, and unrevoked phishing approvals.

Types of Phishing Attacks

Address poisoning, a type of attack where scammers manipulate transaction histories to trick users into sending funds to fraudulent addresses, led to a $771,000 loss in Ethereum (ETH). Other notable losses include:

$611,000 due to a permit scam
$610,000 from unrevoked phishing approvals on BNB Chain
$326,000 from an “IncreaseApproval” attack, which tricks users into raising token spending limits for malicious contracts

One notable case involved a victim who lost over $607,000 due to a phishing approval signed more than a year ago. ScamSniffer’s analysts urged users to revoke old approvals while gas fees on Ethereum are low.

Decline in Losses

The decline in losses could potentially signal better security awareness or fewer successful attacks. However, high-value scams are still happening, and users must remain vigilant.

February’s Crypto Losses

February saw $1.53 billion in crypto losses, an 18x increase from a year ago, largely driven by a $1.46 billion Bybit hack. Most of February’s losses came from just two incidents: crypto exchange Bybit and stablecoin bank Infini, which suffered a $49.5 million hack.