More than 100,000 phishing attacks on crypto wallets are detected by Kaspersky in 2 months

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has identified more than 100,000 phishing attacks on cryptocurrency wallets in the first two months of the year alone. By way of comparison, in the entire year of 2021 there were about 60 thousand attacks of the type involving digital currencies.

According to Kaspersky experts, many scams target MetaMask digital wallet customers. So far in 2022, more than 4,000 phishing attacks targeting this platform have been detected.

According to the cybersecurity company, this interest can be attributed to the prominence that the wallet is having with the boom of the NFTs. After all, MetaMask allows users to authorize their ETH accounts to interact with non-fungible tokens.

Phishing attacks

One of the scams revealed by Kaspersky was a fake digital wallet lock alert to steal passwords.

As the experts pointed out, the link sent in the phishing message directs the victim to a page that mimics the original MetaMask homepage.

To avoid false blocking, the user then needs to provide their wallet private key. Once the victim completes this process, the scammers gain access to the crypto wallet and drain their funds.

“What scares me the most with this expressive growth in scams is that there is nothing new in the way criminals operate. Criminals seeking immediate profit focus on financial fraud such as theft of bank credentials, theft of credit cards. And now, fraud involving digital wallets. I’ve been warning about this mechanism for years. But the numbers show how much this scam still works,” says Fabio Assolini, senior security analyst at Kaspersky.

How to protect yourself from phishing attacks?

To protect against the theft of digital wallets and, consequently, cryptocurrencies, experts recommend that users be alert with unexpected messages about loss of money and accounts.

In addition, they need to be aware of supposed gifts or transfers of funds. These “gifts” are almost always a trap.

Also, you need to investigate incoming email links carefully. A safer alternative is to type the link into your browser instead of clicking on the emailed link.

Finally, you should also install a trusted phishing protection solution.