According to Cyvers, a Web3 security company, “pig slaughter” scams posed the biggest threat to crypto users in 2024, costing $3.6 billion.
The report shows that the number of cyberattacks increased 40% annually in 2024 compared to 2023, with 165 incidents causing $2.3 billion in damages. The total was still 37% below the fraud peak in 2022, but complex schemes and breaches increased sharply this year.
With 67 incidents totaling $1.9 billion, the majority of this damage was due to access control violations. Other attack vectors included smart contract vulnerabilities, which resulted in losses of $456.8 million in 98 incidents, and address poisoning attacks, which resulted in losses of $68.7 million in a single major incident led. These attack methods highlight the holes in blockchain networks and decentralized applications that fraudsters are still exploiting.
Ethereum (ETH) was the blockchain network on which fraudsters operated and caused the majority of crypto fraud losses. The data involved around 150,000 addresses and 800,000 fraudulent activity transactions, Cyvers said. Cyvers cited blockchain’s easy accessibility as a key factor in the fraudulent schemes, which she said allowed fraudsters to send over 100,000 small incentive payments to victims as part of their grooming schemes.
