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The number of stolen digital accounts has skyrocketed recently, with cryptocurrency holders being a high-priority target for the threat actors.
According to a new report from fraud prevention experts Sift, the number of successful account takeover attacks increased 113% in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year.
In addition, there has been a 79% increase in cryptocurrency account takeover attacks. Sift bases these findings on a survey of more than 1,000 consumers, as well as its global network of more than 34,000 sites and apps.
The crypto market
According to Sift, cryptocurrency account holders are currently of particular concern to criminals due to the deep winter the market is currently in. Bitcoin is currently trading at around $16,500, significantly lower than the $69,000 it had in November last year. In fact, since last year, the price of bitcoin has only fallen.
That, Sift researchers argue, has led holders to check their accounts and portfolios much less frequently than they used to, making them ideal targets for takeover attacks.
Once they take control of an account, they team up with other criminals to siphon the money while remaining undetected, the report explains.
The report emphasizes the importance of strong passwords and additional security measures. A strong password has both upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols and is at least eight characters long. Strong passwords are not written on a piece of paper, stored on an unsecured cloud service, or shared with friends and family. Instead, they are stored using password management tools.
Moreover, setting up multi-factor authentication is also a must these days, usually via SMS or a token to verify a user’s identity (opens in new tab). However, for optimal security, passwords should be avoided altogether – instead, other methods, such as biometric keys, should be used where possible to secure your accounts and data. Slowly but surely these are gaining popularity among companies and individuals.
Through: Venture Beat (opens in new tab)