Well now, if you ever fancied watching a gold rush turn into a gold robbery, pull up a chair and have a look at what befell the blockchain folks in the opening months of 2025. The industry lost a whopping $2.37 billion to hackers and ne’er-do-wells, and that’s before you count the folks who just lost their wits. The DeFi sector caught the worst of the beating, but let’s not leave out the rest—scams flourished like weeds after a spring rain, with AI lending a hand and wagging a mechanical finger at common sense.
This jolly news comes courtesy of SlowMist’s mid-year “Blockchain Security and AML Report.” The score: $2.37 billion spirited away in just 121 incidents in H1 2025. The kicker? That’s nearly 66% more cash lost than at this time in 2024, although—miracle of miracles—the number of incidents actually went down. It’s like fewer bank robbers, but each one left riding a gilded carriage.
DeFi remains the favored playground for these digital outlaws, accounting for over three-quarters of all shenanigans and nearly $470 million in swindles. But the real mother lode was in centralized exchanges (CEXs), where just 11 incidents vacuumed up $1.883 billion, which is the sort of bank job that impresses even Jesse James. 🤠
The top culprit? Account compromises. Right behind: smart contracts less reliable than a politician’s promise.
But let’s not keep all the glory for the headline acts. The fine artists of trickery found many ways to separate people from their coin:
Phishing Using EIP-7702
Turns out, giving folks more buttons to push just means more ways to fall off the ladder. Scoundrels took a shine to Ethereum’s fancy new EIP-7702 contract delegation—MetaMask included—to dangle bait that cost one user $146,551. The Inferno Drainer gang (because no honest thief calls himself something like “Gentle Dripper”) cooked up a phishing trap where the poor victim signed away their funds faster than you can say “read the fine print.” 🐟
Deepfakes
The world’s gone from “don’t believe everything you read” to “don’t believe anything you see or hear.” In early 2025, some poor soul named Mehdi Farooq had every last crypto coin pilfered after a fake Zoom meeting starring deepfaked versions of his trusted contacts. Even Elon Musk was conjured up by AI, pitching scams with the enthusiasm of a puppy at dinner time. “Invest in this!” they say. “Lose everything!” they didn’t say.
Telegram Fake Safeguard Scams
If you thought your clipboard was safe, think again. Some smart alecks lured folks through phony X (the app, not the treasure map) accounts, then into Telegram traps where “Tap to verify” links gifted you a Trojan pony. Suddenly, you’re handing out your digital wallet, private keys, and favorite cat pictures to strangers on both Windows and macOS. 🐴
Malicious Browser Extensions
Those handy-dandy “Web3 security tools” in the browser extension store? Sometimes they’re just pickpockets in a cheap suit. One rascal used a hijacked Chrome Web Store account to slip malware to over 2.6 million users. That’s more people than you’ll find in most riverboats, all mourning lost keys and credentials. Congratulations, you now own absolutely nothing!
LinkedIn Recruitment Phishing
“Congratulations! You’re the perfect candidate!”—for getting hacked, that is. Pretend blockchain startups engaged engineers with dazzling job offers, testing their naiveté with malware disguised as technical “tests.” And the reward? Backdoors in your computer, swiping everything from SSH keys to the leftovers in your system Keychain. Not exactly the promotion you wanted. 👔
Social Engineering Attacks
There’s nothing like a bribe to a bored customer service agent to kick off mayhem. Coinbase users found themselves in a soup when attackers paid overseas support staff for the keys to the kingdom, then played customer support themselves—only with less help and more wallet-emptying. The take: over $100 million, with the culprits offering all the sympathy of a crocodile at lunch.
Backdoor Supply Chain Attacks via Low-Cost AI Tools
If you went hunting for “unlimited AI access” and thought you scored a bargain, think again. A whole whack of developers, especially using macOS, installed npm packages laced with more backdoors than a Mississippi paddleboat. One unlucky startup waved goodbye to hundreds of thousands. The attackers, no doubt, are now Googling “how to buy a yacht with crypto.” 🚤
Unrestricted Large Language Models
The mad scientists in the underbelly of tech have unleashed AI models like WormGPT and FraudGPT for anyone too honest to write their own scams. These digital fiends can forge fake projects, cook up phishing lures, and deepfake exchange execs until even their mothers wouldn’t know them. The arms race continues: good guys write code, bad guys write code that empties your wallet. 🤖
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2025-07-04 14:55