Crypto scams run by social engineering increased in 2024, analysts warned that scammers were rapidly targeting celebrities and technical leaders.
In 11 February research reportAnalysts of the Blockchain Forensic firm Merkle Science revealed that in 2024, the scammers hacked their accounts and targeted high-profile data. After achieving access, he quickly promoted the fake token launch made at the pump. A platform for tokens on Solana.
One such incident was a 29 August hack of football star Kylian Mabappa’s X account. The attacker promoted a fake Mbappe Meme coin on Solana, quickly hit the market cap of $ 460 million and hit investors with a loss of over $ 1 million.
“By compromising effective figures and reliable platforms, hackers exploited reliability to manipulate investors on a scale.”
Mercury science
Overall, the firm with the New York-MC identified 36 cases of such scams last year. Celebrity was the most targeted corket, making 33% of cases, written in the report. Tech figures and tech companies followed 30% and 19% cases respectively. Government agencies and consumer brands were rarely killed, each there were only 5% incidents. On average, the victims had 2.3 million followers, the firm note.
Most attacks occurred on X as the social network calculated 75% in all cases. According to Merkal Science, YouTube used scammers 19% and for 5% for the official website hack 5%, using a strategy such as a fishing link and sidelined two-factor authentication. The two main scam types were Galicha Bridge and Fishing, both were making 88% of all crypto-related attacks in 2024.
