Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky in its latest report highlighted that increases in digital asset regulations and tracking technologies are pushing cybercriminals away from Bitcoin. But crypto scams have increased because of the greater adoption of digital assets.
Kaspersky said people have become more aware of crypto and are less likely to fall victim to scams such as Elon Musk-deepfake videos promising huge crypto returns. The cybersecurity firm outlined that malicious actors will continue to steal funds through fake initial token offerings and NFTs, and crypto-based theft such as smart contract exploits will become more advanced and widespread.
The report noted that 2022 has largely been a year of bridge exploits with more than $2.5 billion already pilfered from them. It expects malware loaders to become hot property on hacker forums as they are harder to detect. Kaspersky said ransomware attackers may shift from destructive financial activity to more politically-based demands. Moreover, it noted that some ransomware groups took sides in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine focusing their activities on destructive attacks or limiting the range of their targets by geography.
The firm believes cybercriminals will take advantage of fabricating and selling rogue devices with backdoors, followed by social engineering campaigns, and other methods to steal victims’ financial assets. Kaspersky highlighted that cybercriminals have stolen $3 billion from DeFi protocols, with 125 crypto hacks in total. The report said lack of state-of-the-art security for smart contracts leads to attacks on these platforms and based on how the business model works, the potential theft of a lot of money.
