Social media is the main target for phishing attacks, according to the PhishLabs report. Impersonation and copying of the source code of a website are suspicious tactics that lead to an attack on the internal sources of a user.
There is always someone who has lived the sorrowful experience of having been deceived. The simple click on a suspicious link would let a virus enter the device granting total access to the cryptocurrency portfolio and subsequently generate a loss in numbers.
Phishing is an attack that, according to the most recent report from the cyber threat analysis firm PhishLabs, has targeted users of cryptocurrency exchanges, with an average increase of 22% during the first six months of 2021.
Phishing strategies are practices used to deceive victims with social engineering tactics. In doing so, they make them take actions that would act against them, including clicking on deceptive links that grant confidential info to hackers.
The PhishLabs study, prepared with data collected during the second quarter of the year, highlighted that the number of phishing attacks on exchanges has reached a high peak of 10% so far in 2021.
The study also highlights that during the second quarter of the year, the number of phishing attacks on companies linked to the ecosystem increased by 13% in comparison with those attacks noticed in the first three months of 2021.
PhishLabs analysts predicted that in the upcoming months, the cryptocurrency industry would still face attacks. Social networks are one of the main points of meeting and interaction for the communities.
With Bitcoin back above $ 45,000 and the entire crypto market worth over $ 2 trillion, there are expectations about seeing a stronger focus from hackers attacking this market in the third quarter of the year.
LaCour sees the growth of this ecosystem materialized through innovative services and an increasing number of users as one of the primordial reasons hackers are currently targeting cryptocurrencies.
Social Networks Work as a Vehicle for Phishing
The study highlights social media platforms as the first attack vector. These virtual spaces are the preferred settings to make most of the illicit activity that aims at deceiving users.
Social networks are ideal platforms for these criminal behaviors. Fraud and other cyber threats are on the list, the study states.
Although the cryptocurrency sector is one of the most affected, the report highlights that the increase in phishing attacks on social networks has generally damaged almost all kinds of companies.
Deception Tactic for Phishing
Deception tactics apply in more than 54% of the phishing attacks detected on social networks. The tactics are a dangerous combination of techniques that spoof the identity of brands, executives, and employees in companies. The data reveals that 47.5% of attacks use the brand identity spoofing technique.
This tactic is how hackers use social networks to impersonate an exchange or recognized company. The attackers get to daze customers with deceptive messages that lead them to click on malicious links and even transfer cryptocurrencies with the false expectation of receiving profits.
By. Jenson Nuñez
