In September, the number of attempts by Russian users to navigate to cryptocurrency-related phishing pages rose by almost 50% compared with August—from 211,000 to 317,000. This was reported by Kommersant, citing data from Kaspersky Lab.
\n\n
Overall in the third quarter, the company’s solutions prevented 633,000 such incidents. By comparison, in the second quarter this figure stood at around 379,000 incidents.
\n\n
Other experts also point to a rise in crypto fraud. According to data from the cybersecurity platform Immunefi, the total number of cyberattacks in the third quarter increased by 153% compared with the same period last year.
\n\n
According to estimates by experts polled by the publication, annually about 10–15% of users who first buy crypto assets become victims of fraudsters. For 2022–2023, the amount of funds lost by Russian citizens alone amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars, they added.
\n\n
The uptick is linked to seasonal factors in market capitalization growth, and to Binance’s exit from Russia.
\n\n
In September, Aleksei Pomerko became a victim of a conman when attempting to buy cryptocurrency.
\n\n
Earlier, Russian actor Artem Tkachenko lost about $260,000 on fraudulent Bitcoin investments, trusting the advice of Pavel Derevyanko, who also suffered losses in cryptocurrencies.