The post Approval phishing scams ‘a much bigger problem’ than first thought appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Since May 2021, a staggering $2.7 billion has been lost to approval phishing attacks — and a multinational operation led to one victim being identified in the middle of a scam. A widespread operation has been launched to thwart cybercriminals engaged in “approval phishing.” According to Chainalysis, such attacks involve deceiving an unsuspecting victim into signing a malicious blockchain transaction — often through a fake crypto app. Once complete, it means scammers can spend certain tokens within their wallet at will — potentially draining someone’s life savings in certain circumstances. Source: Chainalysis A particularly notorious incident back in September 2023 led to one person losing $24.23 million of staked ETH that was sitting in their wallet. Since May 2021, a staggering $2.7 billion has been lost to approval phishing attacks, with the blockchain analytics firm warning it’s “a much bigger problem than previously known.”  As a result, Chainalysis says that it’s now launched “Operation Spincaster,” which aims to identify compromised wallets before any lasting damage can be done. Sprints across six countries led to more than 7,000 leads being identified — with losses among these cases amounting to approximately $162 million. And in a particularly breathtaking development, one victim was contacted and alerted that they were in the middle of an ongoing scam, meaning the approval that was given to their attacker could be revoked before crypto worth hundreds of thousands of dollars was stolen. Operation Spincaster shows how law enforcement agencies are increasingly making use of the intelligence delivered through blockchain analytics, which leverages the transparency of this technology to monitor how illicit funds flow through the ecosystem. The National Crime Agency says 230 British victims were identified as a result and has vowed to bring offenders to justice no matter where they are. The NCA’s acting head of…

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Filed under: News - @ August 4, 2024 5:16 pm