Kaspersky: Cryptocurrency Scammers Stole $2.3 Million in Q2

Cybercriminals earned more than $2.3 million from cryptocurrency scams during the second quarter of 2018, according to a new report from Kaspersky Lab.

In its Spam and Phishing in Q2 2018 report, the company reported that it had prevented almost 60,000 attempts by users from visiting fraudulent web pages featuring popular cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges from April to June 2018. The intruders earned the funds by inducing their victims to send their coins to fake ICOs and token distributions, Kaspersky explained.

And it's not just token sales. As CoinDesk has previously reported, malicious websites masquerading as popular cryptocurrency services have also targeted would-be victims.

"The permanence of attacks targeting financial organizations reflects the fact that more and more people are using electronic money," Nadezhda Demidova, lead web content analyst for Kaspersky, wrote in the company's news release, adding:

"Still, not all of them are sufficiently aware of the possible risks, so intruders are actively trying to steal sensitive information through phishing."

Looking more broadly, the Kaspersky report also demonstrated the global reach of phishing scams, with South America and Asia seeing the most activity in this area.

Brazil alone saw 15.51 percent of all phishing attacks during that period. China shared the second position with Georgia (14.44 percent), followed by Kirghizstan (13.6 percent) and Russia (13.27 percent).

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