Report: Crypto thefts have affected One-third of the investors

A well-known cyber security firm that goes by Kaspersky, carried out a survey last year. They conducted the survey on around 2000 American adults between October 20 to 24. Kaspersky designed the survey to gather information about the experiences of crypto users. The main focus was to know about potential threats like scams, fraudulent websites, identity theft, and theft of crypto assets.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Kaspersky disclosed data from a survey conducted on Crypto thefts
• The most vulnerable to thefts were the ones with improper storage practices.
• More than $90,000 worth of crypto assets were stolen

The participants shared their personal experiences with crypto thefts on questioning. They had to share any experience of issues related to security or fraud, and what steps they had taken to protect their crypto assets. Moreover, the main purpose of the survey was to gain a much better understanding of the risks associated with crypto. Also the measures they take to mitigate those issues.

A good number of respondents had their crypto stolen

A significant proportion of the participants who owned crypto had experienced theft of those assets, as per the survey. One-third of the respondents had assets stolen worth $97,783.

Though the range of theft varied from $100 to as high as $1 million. With 15% of respondents reported theft ranging from $100,000 to $1 million. Additionally, around a quarter of the respondents lied in the range of $1001 to $10,000.

Furthermore, a significant number of victims around one-third went through investment scams or fraudulent crypto-related websites. According to the report, cryptocurrency theft was the most common threat, followed by the theft of payment details and money stolen from bank accounts.

What made them vulnerable?

Interestingly, most of the respondents who had their crypto assets stolen had ages between 18-24. This indicates that the younger investors were the most vulnerable to threats.

The final report from Kaspersky revealed that many respondents have improper and inadequate storage practices for crypto seed phrases and private keys. This is a critical aspect of managing your crypto assets. In addition, most of the respondents stored their keys on paper rather than in a secure place.

Besides the most popular protection method amongst 33% of the respondents was the multi-factor authentication that their exchange account website was offering. Marc Rivero, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team emphasized the importance of being cautious with crypto assets. Also asked the investors to be aware of phishing scams, as he stated:

They should employ any extra security measures that are available to them, such as multi-factor authentication, and should use strong, unique passwords across all accounts

Marc Rivero