Crypto-related losses are plummeting as hackers increasingly shift from complex technical exploits to manipulating user behavior, according to a new report from blockchain intelligence platform NOMINIS.
According to the company’s monthly security analysis, losses from major cryptocurrency incidents last month were approximately $49.3 million, a significant decrease from the approximately $385 million recorded in January.
But researchers say a lower total doesn’t mean the environment is safer. Instead, attackers are increasingly relying on social engineering techniques to trick users into granting access to their funds.
The report says that authentication abuse remains the primary attack vector, with many victims unknowingly signing malicious transactions or authorizing permission to use tokens that allow attackers to drain their wallets.
“Rather than relying primarily on complex smart contract exploits, many attackers focus on manipulating transaction approvals and user behavior.”
Most of February’s losses were due to a single infrastructure breach.
Step Finance, a Solana-based DeFi platform, was reported to have had a device owned by an executive compromised, exposing private keys and allowing malicious authorizations, resulting in the exfiltration of approximately 261,854 SOL (worth approximately $30 million) to attackers.
There have also been several other incidents where individual users have fallen victim to phishing authorizations, malicious signatures, and address poisoning scams. The attacker creates a wallet address that looks very similar to a legitimate one.
In one case, the victim accidentally transferred approximately $100,000 in USDT to a similar address after copying the wrong wallet from his transaction history.
While smart contract vulnerabilities still existed, the financial losses were typically smaller than attacks that exploited user privileges or operational security mistakes.
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Featured image: Shutterstock/prodigital art/Natalia Siiatovskaia
