Pig butchering scams drain $3.6b from crypto in 2024

According to Web3 security company Cyvers, the biggest threat to crypto users in 2024 was “hog slaughter” scams, costing $3.6 billion.

The report states that there is a 40% annual increase in the number of cyber attacks in 2024 compared to 2023, and 165 incidents cost 2.3 billion dollars. While the total is still 37% lower than the fraud peak in 2022, complex schemes and breaches have increased this year.

Access control violations accounted for most of this damage, with 67 incidents totaling $1.9 billion. Other attack vectors included smart contract vulnerabilities, which resulted in $456.8 million in losses across 98 incidents, and poisoning attacks, which resulted in $68.7 million in losses in a single large incident. These attack methods demonstrate gaps in blockchain networks and decentralized applications that fraudsters are still exploiting.

Ethereum (ETH) was the blockchain network that scammers operated on and accounted for the majority of crypto fraud losses. Cyvers said the data includes approximately 150,000 addresses and 800,000 fraudulent activities. Cyvers cited blockchain’s ease of access as a key factor in fraud schemes, saying it enabled fraudsters to send more than 100,000 small incentive payments to victims as part of their grooming methods.

🚨 $3.6 Billion Stolen in Hog ​​Slaughter Scams in 2024

🐷This year we witnessed the crypto world rocked by the pig slaughter scam that defrauded unsuspecting users out of a jaw-dropping $3.6 billion, mostly in Ethereum.
Read more @nairametrics at: https://t.co/75rZ5fNOUM

These scams…

— 🚨 Cyvers Alerts 🚨 (@CyversAlerts) December 27, 2024

Cyvers CEO Deddy Lavid believes that in combating access control violations, educating users about these incidents is imperative. He stated that greater transparency in foreign exchange transactions and greater caution by users are also necessary to reduce the success rate of such scams.

What does slaughtering a pig mean?

“Pork butchering” refers to a technique in which victims are groomed by scammers through repeated contact, usually starting with unsolicited messages luring them into fake crypto schemes. Once trust is assured, the path is clear to deploy smaller amounts of cash to withdraw large sums, often hundreds of millions in Tether (USDT), through less transparent exchanges like Binance, HTX, OKX, Crypto, etc. com and Coinbase. It is often laundered through decentralized and centralized exchanges before being converted into illicit cash.

Crypto scams are on the rise

Top attacks in 2024 include WazirX, which lost $235 million due to a vulnerability in its multi-signature wallet system in one of the biggest attacks of the year.

🚨WARNING🚨Hey @WazirXIndiaOur system detected a large number of suspicious transactions involving your Safe Multisig wallet. #ETH network.

A total of $234.9 million of your money has been moved to a new address. Each transaction is funded by the caller @TornadoCash.

Suspicious… pic.twitter.com/4sajAwd4Hb

— 🚨 Cyvers Alerts 🚨 (@CyversAlerts) July 18, 2024

DMM Exchange was hacked and lost $305 million when attackers compromised the private key from the platform’s Bitcoin (BTC) hot wallet. This was another high-profile breach. Additionally, hackers compromised the devices used to access the platform, resulting in a $50 million loss for Radiant Capital. In contrast, BingX was stripped of $52 million in funds when attackers were able to access the exchange’s hot wallets and transfer funds across multiple networks. . As such, these incidents reveal recurring vulnerabilities of many crypto exchanges.

To get better

However, despite these losses, some progress was made in rehabilitation efforts. In 2024, approximately $1.3 billion was returned to victims, primarily through chain detectives and bug bounty programs like ZachXBT. The study noted that the first quarter of 2024 had the highest number of cases of any quarter of the year, with 53 cases. The largest amount (approximately $760 million) was lost in Q3 2024, while the lowest activity and losses were seen in Q4.