Cyber hackers and scammers, fishing for victims from the crypto sector, have upped their game and are now bagging bigger rewards by the day for their illegal activities. A new report from blockchain research firm CertiK estimates that a whopping amount of $103 million was stolen in crypto exploits in April 2023. Notorious actors have been targeting the crypto community because one scam could earn them thousands of dollars from investors. Besides, crypto transactions are largely anonymous that makes the traceability of stolen funds close to impossible.
The two most common types of crypto scams that extracted the most funds, as per CertiK, are “exit scams” and “flash loans”. In exit scams, convincing-looking businesses keep accepting payments for whatever product or service they are selling, while abandoning already accepted orders or requests. Often categorized as a ‘confidence trick’, exit scams were used to steal $9.3 million from the crypto sector in April 2023.
Flash loans, however, brought more to the scammers and hackers in these instances of cyber loot. As per CertiK’s analysis, crypto criminals stole $19.8 million by offering limitless borrowing of loans. This way, lenders who need immediate loans borrows and returns the funds in the same transaction, draining the victims’ accounts.
The exploit of multiple trading bots on April 3 resulted in the loss of $25.4 million. Later, $22 million were lost in the Bitrue hot wallet exploit, followed by the theft of $13 million on South Korea’s GDAC exchange.
In the last four months of 2023, CertiK estimates $429.7 million were stolen by crypto scammers and hackers.
Combining all the incidents in April we’ve confirmed ~$103.6M lost to exploits, hacks, and scams.
Exit scams were ~$9.3M.
Flash loans were ~$19.8M.
See the details below 👇 pic.twitter.com/jflvMPiJGQ
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) April 30, 2023
