April 18, 2018 at 14:54

How scammers cheat cryptocurrency users and how to protect digital assets: 3 practical tips



    The cryptocurrency market volume grew from $ 27 billion in April 2017 to $ 270 billion, as of April 3, 2018. Such growth is associated with an increase in the value of bitcoin relative to the dollar, as well as with the spread of ICOs, with which startups raise funds to grow their business. For example, in 2017, companies received in this way $ 5.6 billion. The

    ability to quickly make money on the resale of project tokens attracted many inexperienced investors, as well as cybercriminals interested in easy money.

    As a result of hacker attacks and theft of funds from cryptocurrency wallets from 2011 to 2018, cryptocurrency user losses from the market amounted to$ 1.7 billion. Of these, $ 670 million, that is, about 40% of the total, the attackers stole in the first three months of 2018. The largest losses in 2018 were theft of $ 400 million from the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck and losses of $ 140 million after the attack on the BitGrail exchange in February.

    About how scammers earn on the greed of investors and how to deal with them, told the publication Business Insider, and we have prepared an adapted version of this material.

    With market growth you need to be more vigilant


    According to experts, the number of cryptocurrency fraudulent schemes and hacker attacks increases whenever cryptocurrencies show an upward trend. Therefore, investors should be more careful when a bullish trend is observed in the market. Also, they should not invest more than they can afford to lose in case of failure.

    Cybercriminals often try to attract their gullible victims with the prospect of unrealistically high profits from investing in dubious ICOs, so experts urge investors not to be greedy and take a more thoughtful approach to investing.

    Do not store assets not involved in trading on a cryptocurrency exchange


    Users of crypto exchanges are much less protected than investors on “fiat” platforms (about protecting assets on regular reader exchanges here ). Many investors store their digital assets not intended for trading operations on exchanges rather than crypto-wallets, which makes them attractive to hackers interested in stealing large sums of money.

    So cybercriminals received millions from unsuspecting investors using the Ponzi scheme, creating an “Asian-European cryptocurrency” that was later liquidated by the Chinese police.

    You can't trust anyone


    Due to the fact that phishing is still one of the most popular types of fraudulent schemes, investors should be more vigilant: check that the URL in the message sent does not lead to a fraudulent site, do not download attachments from letters from unfamiliar addresses, etc. .

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