At a time when cyberattacks have become prevalent, the need to ensure safe interactions has never been as apparent. Just recently, Microsoft reported that over 600 million cyberattacks occur daily, emphasising why you can’t afford to ignore your online security. And this is no different in the crypto industry, where attacks have also become common. According to Fintech News, the sector, surprisingly, lost over $2.1 billion to hacks and exploits within the first half of 2025 alone.
Crypto is no longer just about tracking the Bitcoin price in real time and shouting ‘HODL.’ As much as you may want to take advantage of market shifts, paying attention to your safety can help ensure long-term participation. It gets even more serious because hackers, shady projects, and full-on government-backed cyber gangs are out here swiping digital assets like candy from a convenience store.
Of course, digital currencies promised freedom and decentralisation during their launch. However, the same elements that give you freedom are also the ones hackers are exploiting. Imagine interacting in an ecosystem that has no fraud department, third party, or fallback. If you lose your keys for even two seconds, malicious persons may take advantage of you.
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When governments crash the party
According to Dr. Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto investigators Elliptic, North Korean hackers are the most skilled at laundering cryptocurrency. A 2025 TRM Labs report, which agrees with Robinson’s sentiments, noted that these hackers accounted for 35% of all stolen tokens in 2024. As if that’s not enough, their attacks were approximately five times larger than those by other malicious persons.
Several experts attribute the $1.5 billion crypto loss from one of the world’s most popular exchanges to North Korean actors. These individuals have become sophisticated and tend to work around the clock. As a result, they converted 20% of the digital coins into unrecoverable funds. Combine this 2025 crypto heist with other cyber operations orchestrated by Pyongyang since 2017, and you have a total loss of over $5 billion worth of digital currencies.
To avoid these instances, consider taking advantage of the benefits that hardware wallets offer. These devices implement cold storage, ensuring transactions occur in a disconnected environment where unauthorised access is nearly impossible. According to MoldStud, online vulnerabilities are the primary cause of up to 90% of crypto thefts, making offline solutions particularly handy.
The lie that feels real enough to click
Threat actors have perfected the art of mimicking legitimate websites to deceive users. In most cases, they will strive to appear official and maintain consistent branding to earn users’ trust. All you need to do is click on those messages, and your sensitive information is gone. Unfortunately, many people often fall victim, with studies attributing 36% of all online security incidents to phishing scams.
In the crypto industry, companies and users lost up to $1.8 billion to these attacks in 2024 alone. Scammers are creating near-perfect replicas of real websites, hijacking ad placements and purchasing fake domain names that appear legitimate. Others go an extra mile to make phishing calls and inbox users on Discord and Telegram with fake opportunities. This is without considering those that may prompt you to act without thinking by offering something desirable or by impersonation.
To prevent these attacks:
- Never enter seed phrases online
- Verify URLs and bookmark the real ones
- Use hardware wallets for every transaction
- Double-check recipient addresses every time
Technologies, such as two-factor authentication (2FA), can also be handy. 2FA adds an extra security layer to online accounts by requiring a second piece of information, beyond a password, to verify a user’s identity. As simple as it may sound, this technology can reduce the risk of phishing attacks by up to 96%.
The silent killers that you may not be thinking of
There’s a reason why Precedence Research values the global quantum technology market at $1.32 billion and expects it to jump to $9.65 billion by 2034. If this prediction comes to pass, the industry will have grown by a whole 22% CAGR. While quantum computers perform certain calculations much faster than classical computers, they could potentially break the encryption algorithms that currently protect sensitive data.
This means encrypted data could be vulnerable to decryption in the coming days when quantum computers become powerful enough. It’s part of the reason some hackers are using the ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ strategy to collect encrypted data now and store it for future decryption.
Then there’s artificial intelligence, which hackers are using to polish their efforts. Imagine getting a video call from your ‘company director’ asking you to send crypto. If you aren’t keen enough, you might do it only to realise later that it was a scam. Now, combining AI and quantum technology could exacerbate the cybersecurity situation. An attack that takes advantage of AI’s speed and pattern recognition, as well as quantum computing capabilities, is no joke.
That’s why you may want to adopt wallets and protocols that are prepping for post-quantum cryptography. Remember, the crypto industry is expanding daily, drawing the attention of malicious persons. And since these individuals have significantly advanced, you don’t want to ignore your wallet safety, even for a second. Thankfully, using infrastructures like two-factor authentication (2FA) can be helpful. Other measures, such as transacting with hardware wallets, can also help, as most of this industry’s attacks occur due to online vulnerabilities.
