Pig slaughter scams were the major attack vector for the cryptocurrency sector in 2024, resulting in billions of dollars in losses for millions of investors.
according to data Web3 security firm Cyver’s annual fraud report shows that scammers managed to defraud crypto users of more than $3.6 billion this year, involving more than 150,000 addresses and 800,000 transactions.
This number, while significant, represents a slight decline in losses compared to last year, when similar plans lost approximately $3.96 billion.
What are pig slaughter scams?
Often associated with sophisticated social engineering tactics, pig slaughter scams are long-term fraudulent schemes that thrive on emotional manipulation, fake credibility, and promises of high returns, making them one of the most insidious threats in the cryptocurrency sector.
The term ‘pig butcher’ is derived from the practice of fattening a pig before slaughter, in much the same way as scammers build trust and rapport with their targets over weeks or months.
Fraudsters contact victims in a variety of ways.
Sometimes, they pose as romantic interests, sometimes as financial advisors, and gradually lure victims into shady crypto investments that are too good to be true.
Victims are usually lured to fake trading platforms where they often see manipulated dashboards that display impressive returns to gain their trust and encourage investment.
Once the victim has fully invested, the scammer disappears with the funds, leaving victims with little recourse and often no way to recoup their losses.
However, in a rare turn of events last month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation recovered $8.3 million linked to pig slaughter scheme.
The case involved the former chief executive of Heartland Tri-State Bank, who misappropriated $47.1 million in customer funds, ultimately leading to the bank’s collapse.
As pig slaughter scams become increasingly common, authorities around the world have increased efforts to track down and dismantle these often large criminal networks.
Earlier this month, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria arrested 792 suspects were allegedly involved in carrying out the pig slaughter scam.
Cyber attacks are increasing
However, pig slaughter scams are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the variety of threats affecting the cryptocurrency industry.
sievers report Note that hacking attacks targeting this sector have increased by 40% compared to last year, with access control breaches and smart contract vulnerabilities causing the most damage.
like before informed A separate report by Inves, from security firm Hacken, also highlights a similar trend.
In particular, the centralized finance sector was most affected, with private key agreements and weak access controls emerging as the primary vulnerabilities, accounting for 75% of all exploits in 2024.
Apart from the above schemes, phishing attacks remain another frequent threat to crypto users.
Since cryptocurrencies are inherently digital and transactions occur entirely online, the ecosystem remains highly vulnerable to such attacks.
Even though there have been so many losses continues to decline Over the past months, the complex and stealthy nature of the attack has made it a common weapon in the arsenal of crypto scammers.
For example, scammers were seen on December 26. Exploitation Adloox will deliver Google Ads crypto-stealing phishing scripts mimicking the Pudgy Penguin Project website with malicious content hosted on a tracking domain.
Post Pig slaughter crypto scam cost users $3.6 billion this year first appeared on Invez
