March 29, 2024

Kaspersky Lab: “More than a third of Americans have been subjected to the theft of cryptocurrencies”

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Kaspersky Lab: “More than a third of Americans have experienced cryptocurrency theft”

According to a Laboratory surveyKaspersky, more than a third of Americans who own cryptocurrencies have become victims of scammers. Users do not pay due attention to measures to protect their crypto assets.

Kaspersky Lab specialists conductedsurvey of 2,000 Americans between October 20 and October 24, 2022, asking them questions about their experiences with cryptocurrencies and measures taken to protect crypto assets. It turned out that a third of respondents who had ever owned cryptocurrencies had their digital assets stolen through fraudulent sites or organizations. Among these victims, 19% of people had their personal information stolen, and 27% had their payment details stolen. The average amount of funds stolen was $97,583.

The researchers found that 36% of participantssurvey, 25 to 44 year olds own digital assets, while for people over 55 years old this figure is only 10%. Nearly half of respondents (47%) in the 18 to 24 age group said they had their cryptocurrencies stolen, while only 8% of people over 55 said the same.

Regarding measures to protect funds, manyrespondents reviewed their cryptocurrency investments about six weeks ago. 32% of cryptocurrency owners have lost access to their accounts, 27% of users store their crypto assets on an exchange wallet without additional protection, and only 34% of respondents use multi-factor identification to protect their accounts. 25% of survey respondents said they use an online wallet or browser plugin, 15% prefer desktop wallets, 15% keep funds in a cold wallet, and 11% keep money in a paper wallet.

“List of threats to cryptocurrency usersextensive: scams, malware, phishing and so on. Users need to be careful when investing their money to avoid ending up on fake sites. Additional security measures should be applied: multi-factor identification, as well as creating unique passwords,” said Marc Rivero, senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

Recently, Kaspersky Lab specialists warned the public about phishing emails in which users are invited to invest in the digital currency of the Bank of Russia.