While cryptocurrencies have gone from red hot to full on meltdown in recent months, with both retail and institutional investors losing substantial sums amidst the sell-off, threat actors don’t show any signs of shying away from finding new and innovative ways to pursue this lucrative and relatively new financial category with increasingly complex and stealthy crypto-stealers. Indeed, just this past month, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned criminals have created fraudulent apps that mimic real financial services brands to dupe investors into parting with $42.7 million in cryptocurrency over a period of about six months. This fast-evolving part of the finance industry is certainly keeping cybersecurity defenders on their toes and has become one of the most targeted areas by ransomware criminals, with the average cost of remediation estimated around 1.8 million. Bitcoin’s creation in 2009 spurred a gold-rush mentality among both investors and malware actors alike who saw it as a can’t lose lottery ticket to get rich quick. A dozen years on, there are now more than 12,000 cryptocurrencies (March 2022) with the market more than doubling from the start of 2021 to the same point a year later.
Read more : Beware the Crypto Stealers.
