Crypto Thefts Rose to $163M in August Despite Fewer Incidents

A $91 million social engineering theft from a Bitcoiner and the $50 million breach at Turkish exchange Btcturk accounted for most of the ￰0￱ the number of hacks is trending downward, experts warn that rising crypto prices are making high-value targets more ￰1￱ the same time, scams like the “try my game” hack are exploiting trust rather than code to drain ￰2￱ leaders warn that fake recruitment campaigns and approval phishing are also on the ￰3￱ Criminals Steal $163M in August Hackers and scammers stole over $163 million from the crypto sector in August, according to data from blockchain security firm ￰4￱ is a 15% increase from July’s $142 million in ￰5￱ the figure is down 47% compared to the same time last year, it still shed some light on a worrying shift in strategy by cybercriminals who are now focusing their efforts on high-value centralized exchanges and people with large crypto ￰6￱ of the most damaging incidents last month involved a Bitcoiner who lost 783 BTC , which was worth around $91 million at the time, in a sophisticated social engineering ￰7￱ victim was deceived by bad actors posing as support staff from a crypto exchange and hardware wallet provider, which led to one of the largest individual thefts of the ￰8￱ major incident occurred at Turkish crypto exchange Btcturk , which lost almost $50 million after attackers breached its hot ￰9￱ was the exchange’s second major hack in just over a year, and it raised serious questions about its security ￰10￱ the dollar amount of losses increased, PeckShield pointed out that the number of attacks continues to ￰11￱ hacks were recorded in August compared to 17 in July and 20 in ￰12￱ is a good sign that overall ecosystem security is gradually improving.

Still, experts believe that rising crypto prices are making the space an increasingly attractive ￰13￱ Bitcoin and Ethereum hit new all-time highs in August, amplifying the potential rewards for ￰14￱ Huang , CEO of Kronos Research, explained that surging prices create higher-value rewards for attackers, while the pace of security improvements is still quite ￰15￱ warned that losses could continue to rise for the rest of the year unless security technology catches ￰16￱ a more optimistic note, Huang pointed out that AI-driven tools and stronger security models could provide meaningful protection in the ￰17￱ now, both individuals and corporations holding large amounts of crypto are being urged to adopt stronger, proactive security measures to defend against sophisticated phishing and social engineering ￰18￱ My Game Hack Drains Crypto Wallets Last month, crypto user and NFT artist Princess Hypio also revealed that she lost $170,000 in digital assets after falling victim to a scam known as the “try my game” ￰19￱ scheme has been circulating for years in various online communities, and it typically involves attackers embedding themselves in Discord groups or similar platforms, gaining trust, and then luring targets into downloading malware under the guise of a ￰20￱ Hypio’s case, a scammer convinced her to play a game on Steam, even offering to buy it for ￰21￱ the game itself was safe, the malicious server hosting it contained Trojan malware that gave attackers access to her ￰22￱ allowed them to drain her crypto and NFTs, including a Milady ￰23￱ later explained that three of her friends also fell prey to the same ￰24￱ say this scam thrives not on exploiting code, but on exploiting ￰25￱ Percoco, chief security officer at Kraken, explained that the biggest vulnerability in crypto is human trust rather than technical ￰26￱ mimic the behavior of trusted friends, learn community slang, and slowly manipulate targets into lowering their guard.

Similarly, Gabi Urrutia , chief information security officer at Halborn, described the scam as a blend of malware and social ￰27￱ it is not necessarily highly sophisticated, it is effective because it abuses trust in tight-knit online ￰28￱ of the tactic extend beyond crypto, with users warning on forums like Malwarebytes and Reddit about similar scams targeting ￰29￱ pointed out that while crypto is often the first sector to encounter these attacks, they tend to spread across ￰30￱ experts advised users to be skeptical, verify identities through separate channels, avoid running unknown software, and be cautious about mixing gaming and wallet management on the same ￰31￱ themselves can also help by tightening verification processes and limiting direct messages from ￰32￱ from Cisco Talos Percoco also warned that an even more dangerous trend is growing: fake recruitment ￰33￱ June, North Korea-linked hackers reportedly targeted crypto job seekers with malware disguised as recruitment tests, to steal wallet and password manager ￰34￱ added that scams exploiting blind signing and approval phishing are also becoming more common.