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The popularity of NFTs and the increase in their value and operations, which exceeded 300 million US dollars, have begun to attract the attention of cybercriminals.
The main thing, such as a cryptocurrency, must be managed through a digital wallet, so keeping these wallets safe and the use of their associated systems is one of the issues that generates the most concern.
Sleepminting is a process that can allow a scammer to mint an NFT in an artist’s wallet and transfer it to their own account without the artist noticing.
With the advent of new technologies and cryptocurrencies, scams are also very common. That is why ESET, a leading proactive threat detection company, warns about the most common types of fraud around these crypto assets and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
According to data from Statista, cryptocurrency investing is quite popular in India, where in 2021 18 percent of respondents said they own bitcoin. Compared to the survey carried out in 2019, the proportion has increased by eleven percentage points.
Given these data and according to the report, Cryptocrime Report 2022 from Chainalysis, the blockchain analysis platform, crimes based on cryptocurrencies reached a new all-time high in 2021.
In this sense, Chainalysis points out in its report that wallets with illicit addresses received 14,000 million dollars throughout the year, compared to 7,800 million dollars in 2020, being decentralized finance (DeFi) played a crucial role in many of these crimes.
These are the most common NFT scams
The popularity of NFTs and the increase in their value and operations that surpassed the 300 million US dollars, have begun to attract the attention of cybercriminals.
This is why ESET warns about the most common types of fraud around these crypto assets so that people establish parameters to be protected.
The main thing, as it is a cryptocurrency, must be handled through a digital wallet, so keeping these wallets safe and the use of their associated systems is one of the issues that generates the most concern around the protection of these crypto assets.
Camilo Gutiérrez, Head of the ESET Latin America Research Laboratory, points out that “for example, in the event that someone tries to steal a physical work of art, they should violate the physical security of the museum that houses said work, while to steal a digital asset it is required to violate the security of the system that hosts it and those that are involved around it. In this context, threats such as malwarethe use of Social Engineering techniques such as phishing and other forms of deception begin to be more frequent due to the greater interest of attackers who seek to appropriate or manipulate these crypto assets.
Likewise, the research firm highlights the number of frauds and scams that have currently been known, as well as the crime “sleepminting”which is a process that can allow a scammer to mint an NFT in an artist’s wallet and transfer it to their own account without the artist noticing.
Gutiérrez adds that another crime is fraud such as rug pull and identity theft or false profiles, as well as scams through direct messages on Discord, fake social media profiles, and fake sites posing as official (phishing).
In light of this, ESET recommends that you always take a close look at links received by any means before clicking or in case it asks for personal information, such as a seed phrase or password.
Another scam that researchers say is very common in the NFT community are imitators of artists or creators, so they warn that if you are going to buy an NFT from an artist, you must be sure that they are verified or that they prove their age or activity. They haven’t been involved in anything suspicious.
“Cybercriminals take advantage of the fact that the NFT market is not regulated and that it does not have legal resources to deal with such crimes. Many stolen digital works of art are fraudulently sold as NFTs. Although there are incipient security strategies, there is undoubtedly much to be done, since vulnerabilities in systems are renewed day by day and, as usual in security, the weakest link is in the behavior of users”, he points out. the investigator.
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