
{"id":29919,"date":"2024-12-20T07:12:25","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T07:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=29919"},"modified":"2024-12-20T07:12:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T07:12:25","slug":"132-million-lost-november-crypto-crime-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=29919","title":{"rendered":"+132 Million Lost\u200a\u2014\u200aNovember Crypto Crime Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>+132 Million Lost\u200a\u2014\u200aNovember Crypto Crime\u00a0Report<\/h3>\n<h4><strong>$132 million was lost to crypto crimes in November 2024, marking the lowest criminal bounty of the year\u200a\u2014\u200aclosely mirroring the downtrend observed since the end of\u00a0summer.<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Of that, $25.2 million was recovered, bringing the net effective loss to nearly $107 million. This decline has been fueled by the significant underperformance of wallet drainers in recent months, with November gains barely reaching $10 million\u200a\u2014\u200aa stark drop to nearly one-fifth of September\u2019s total.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the loss was attributed to hacks, with private key exploits taking center stage and accounting for $41.7 million lost across six incidents. Smart contract exploits accounted for $31 million across eight incidents.<\/p>\n<p>This month also saw the unexpected return of oracle exploits, primarily due to sheer negligence.<\/p>\n<p>What truly made November 2024 stand out was the cluster of rather eclectic crypto crime\u00a0stories.<\/p>\n<p>These included, in no particular order, DeFi protocols driving themselves into the ground through neglect of their security responsibilities, an ex-Fortnite pro player turned scam kingpin, an exit scam potentially disguised as a hack, an international threat group expanding its targets, kidnapping going up as market goes up, and so on and so\u00a0forth.<\/p>\n<p>We cherry picked some of them for our monthly report. Now, let\u2019s dive into the most impactful crypto crime stories of November\u00a02024!<\/p>\n<h3>November 2024 Crypto Crime\u00a0Figures<\/h3>\n<p>Crypto Crime Report NOVEMBER 2024\u200a\u2014\u200aNEFTURECrypto Crime Report NOVEMBER 2024\u200a\u2014\u200aNEFTURECrypto Crime Report NOVEMBER 2024\u200a\u2014\u200aNEFTURE<\/p>\n<h3>Crypto Hacks: Protocols Lost to Negligence and a Mint-and-Dump Masquerading as a\u00a0Hack?<\/h3>\n<h4>Outrageous Neglect of Security: Polter Finance and DeltaPrime Hacks<\/h4>\n<p>DeFi protocols that barely meet, or outright neglect, basic security standards are unfortunately widespread\u200a\u2014\u200aand this month has been particularly rife with such examples.<\/p>\n<h4><strong><em>Polter Finance\u200a\u2014\u200aCopy-Paste Code, Zero Audits, and a Costly\u00a0Hack<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><strong><em>On November 17th, Fantom-based Polter Finance DeFi was exploited for $12 million through an oracle manipulation attack.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Polter Finance team caused the issue by introducing an oracle manipulation vulnerability when they chose to use spot prices directly from decentralized exchanges, specifically the SpookySwap V2\/V3 pool prices, for their newly launched BOO token\u00a0oracle.<\/p>\n<p>The BOO token was newly launched and obviously lacked liquidity, making the use of SpookySwap pool prices extremely vulnerable to manipulation in low-liquidity pools.<\/p>\n<p>A simple flash loan is enough to turn spot prices into faulty oracles.<br \/>And that\u2019s exactly what the attacker did. Using a flash loan, they launched their attack, draining Polter\u2019s liquidity pools and siphoning off the entire $12 million worth of tokens on the platform.<\/p>\n<p>What made people\u2019s eyebrows rise up to their hairlines wasn\u2019t just the beginner-level security mistake that crashed their entire protocol. It was the fact that this rookie error perfectly aligned with the abysmal security measures the protocol was \u201carmed\u201d\u00a0with.<\/p>\n<p>Polter Finance deemed security audits unnecessary after simply copy-pasting the audited Geist code to operate their protocol.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of conducting a security audit on a protocol that held the trust and millions of dollars of user funds\u200a\u2014\u200asince there is no such thing as a perfect copy-paste of another protocol, as every protocol implements its own parameters and unique adjustments\u200a\u2014\u200athey chose to provide Geist\u2019s audit in lieu of their\u00a0own.<\/p>\n<p>Their audacity, if one chooses to call it that, was certainly well rewarded.<\/p>\n<p>Polter Finance\u2019s \u201cAudit\u201d Page\u200a\u2014\u200aSource: <a href=\"https:\/\/polter.gitbook.io\/polter\/audit\">Polter\u00a0Finance<\/a><\/p>\n<p>On top of that, Polter Finance has faced accusations of possibly inflating the reported funds lost in the hack. Their police report claimed higher losses, but blockchain forensics have only been able to confirm that around <em>\u201conly\u201d<\/em> $8.7 million was actually siphoned from the protocol.<\/p>\n<p>To close this edifying case, we borrow the words of <a href=\"https:\/\/rekt.news\/polter-finance-rekt\/\">Rekt.news<\/a>: <em>\u201cWhen will they learn that \u2018fork and pray\u2019 isn\u2019t a security strategy?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>DeltaPrime: More of the Same\u200a\u2014\u200a$11 Million Lost in Just Two\u00a0Months<\/h4>\n<p><strong><em>DeltaPrime was hacked for $4.8 million due to a critical flaw in the periphery adapter contract.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The attacker, using a flash loan, exploited two smart contract vulnerabilities, specifically input validation issues according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.certik.com\/resources\/blog\/53e8FopQX9TTrTnMg3Mas6-deltaprime-incident-analysis\">Certik\u2019s investigation<\/a>.<br \/>Unchecked input allowed anyone to enter an address without properly verifying whether it was valid or allowed. The attacker exploited this vulnerability to send the tokens they borrowed to any address of their\u00a0choice.<\/p>\n<p>The second vulnerability involved arbitrary address input, which was exploited through the claim mechanism to withdraw collateral by manipulating the address input. The attacker forced DeltaPrime to release collateral they shouldn\u2019t have been able to access by using their own\u00a0address.<\/p>\n<p>The attack resulted in the theft of $753K on Arbitrum, quickly followed by another attack on Avalanche, stealing an additional $4.1M.<\/p>\n<p>This multi-million-dollar hack follows DeltaPrime\u2019s $6 million private key exploit due to admin key vulnerabilities in September 2024.<br \/>In both cases, PeckShield\u2019s audits from 2022 and 2023 had specifically flagged the vulnerabilities that were exploited in the two\u00a0attacks.<\/p>\n<p>Source: Peckshield (<a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/DeltaPrimeLabs\/deltaprime-primeloans\/blob\/dev\/main\/audits\/PeckShield-Audit-Report-DeltaPrime-v1.0.pdf\">1<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/DeltaPrimeLabs\/deltaprime-primeloans\/blob\/dev\/main\/audits\/PeckShield-Audit-Report-DeltaPrime-v2.1.pdf\">2<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>DeltaPrime chose not to update their code, leaving those glaring vulnerabilities open to attack. Literally written in black and white, sitting plainly in those audits for anyone to find and exploit\u200a\u2014\u200aand that\u2019s exactly what happened.<\/p>\n<p>We have to ask: who wins the round? Is it worse to not have lifted a single security finger and gotten hacked, or to have paid for audits that pointed out the very causes of your downfall and still done\u00a0nothing?<\/p>\n<h4>GIFTO\u00a0: Mint-and-Dump or\u00a0Hack?<\/h4>\n<p>On November 26th, Binance announced that it would delist the GFT\/USDT trading pair on December 10th, 2024, triggering an unanticipated crisis for GFT\u00a0holders.<\/p>\n<p>While little market panic was anticipated, they did not foresee that the Gifto team, following the news, would mint 1.2 billion GFT tokens (worth over $8.6 million) within an eight-hour window and then deposit them into exchanges.<\/p>\n<p>Effectively minting and dumping their bags onto their\u00a0holders.<\/p>\n<p>The mint-and-dump caused the GFT market price to plummet by 40%, resulting in over $13.5 million in gains for the minter(s), according to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CertiKAlert\/status\/1862828939410034879\">Certik\u00a0data<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>After multiple blockchain sleuths raised alarms and the community voiced their outrage, the Gifto team took to Twitter to declare \u201ca critical security incident involving the GFT contract.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gifto Announcement of a Security Incident\u200a\u2014\u200aSource:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/GiftoMetaverse\">Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now, is it true, or is it just another case of an exit scam posing as a hack, as the crypto community has seen legion of? A subject we heavily breached in <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/nefture\/scams-masquerading-as-hacks-a-crypto-plague-the-zbexchange-case-eccd5ef58543\">our report<\/a> on the\u00a0matter.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/nefture\/scams-masquerading-as-hacks-a-crypto-plague-the-zbexchange-case-eccd5ef58543\">Scams Masquerading as Hacks: A Crypto Plague\u200a\u2014\u200aThe ZBexchange Case<\/a><\/p>\n<p>While they claimed the GFT token contract had been compromised, a week has passed since then, and they haven\u2019t come forward with more explanation about what really happened and what this \u201ccritical security incident\u201d is all\u00a0about.<\/p>\n<p>Both the team\u2019s attitude and the circumstances make suspicions run high.<br \/>A single tweet has yet to absolve the team of accusations that the project exploited the delisting as an exit strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, perhaps more questions should be directed at Binance. The exchange never fully explained why it decided to delist GIFTO in the first place, offering only generic criteria about how delisting decisions are\u00a0made.<\/p>\n<p>This story, whether it ultimately proves that the team behind GIFTO were fraudsters at heart or that the project had severe security vulnerabilities, underscores the validity of Binance\u2019s decision to delist\u00a0it.<\/p>\n<p>Only Binance knows the true motivations behind their choice to delist Gifto, and they may hold the key to understanding what really transpired on that fateful\u00a0day.<\/p>\n<h3>Crypto Scams: Ex-Fortnite Pro Player Unveiled as Scam Kingpin, with $11 Million Lost to SIM Swapping Linked to a Worldwide Threat\u00a0Group<\/h3>\n<h4>The Ex-Fortnite Pro Player Turned Crypto Scam Ring\u00a0Leader<\/h4>\n<p>Although Instagram and Twitter hacks have been a constant in the crypto landscape since 2022, 2024 saw a shift in who was targeted. Whereas NFTs and DeFi projects were once the primary focus, most of these hacks in 2024 target high-profile brands and individuals who have little to do with crypto to begin\u00a0with.<\/p>\n<p>These hacks are typically carried out by serial perpetrators who have mastered the\u00a0process.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/zachxbt\/status\/1861775015382790308\">thorough investigation by crypto sleuth ZachXBT<\/a> in November 2024 revealed that one such serial scammer was behind at least nine account compromises over the past few months, accounting for $3.5 million lost by crypto\u00a0users.<\/p>\n<p>List of Hacks Allegedly Operated by Serpent\u200a\u2014\u200aSource: <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/zachxbt\/status\/1861450263925559399\">ZachXBT\u2019s Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Among them were hacks targeting McDonald\u2019s, Usher, SPX 6900, and Wiz Khalifa. After the hacks, posts promoting the scam coins on the Pump.fun meme coin launchpad were\u00a0made.<\/p>\n<p>Phishing Posts on McDonalds and Usher Social Media Pages\u200a\u2014\u200aSource: <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/zachxbt\/status\/1861450263925559399\">ZachXBT\u2019s Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The token GRIMACE, from the McDonald\u2019s hack, brought in over $690,000!<\/p>\n<p>Following the blockchain tracks left by the scammer, ZachXBT was not only able to connect all of them together, but they also led him to the person allegedly behind them: Serpent, a former pro Fortnite player from Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Serpent apparently has a profound issue with staying on the right side of morality, as he was dismissed from the league after investigations revealed he cheated in\u00a02020.<\/p>\n<p>Four years later, he was caught once again in amoral dealings, but with a crypto twist this\u00a0time.<\/p>\n<p>Overtime announcement over Serpent dismissal\u2014 Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/zachxbt\/status\/1861450263925559399\">ZachXBT\u2019s Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>His career as a fraudster, however, didn\u2019t start with this slew of\u00a0hacks.<\/p>\n<p>ZachXBT was able to trace his tracks further back to two rug pulls. The first was a project called DAPE, launched in March 2022. The second occurred a few months before the McDonald\u2019s hack, in March 2024, when he launched the project ERROR. He made off with 29 ETH but was banned from Twitter for this latest rug\u00a0pull.<\/p>\n<p>One of the reasons ZachXBT was able to connect all these dots is Serpent\u2019s vice, which ultimately led to his downfall: gambling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSerpent gambles millions of dollars on Roobet, Stake, BC Game, and Shuffle each month, frequently screensharing with friends on Discord,\u201d ZachXBT reported. Unfortunately for Serpent, the people with whom he shared his wins forwarded the recordings of him sharing multiple deposit and withdrawal addresses he used during those screenshares.<\/p>\n<p>It was also revealed that Serpent didn\u2019t operate those scams alone. ZachXBT linked a certain \u201cDEX\u201d from Massachusetts to the Andy Ayrey\u00a0case.<\/p>\n<p>According to the rather discombobulated ramblings of the accused, when he tried to explain away his involvement, Serpent used his network to leverage their CEX\/Binance accounts to manipulate and gain the scam tokens he\u00a0created.<\/p>\n<p>He also revealed at least one other accomplice of Serpent in the Wiz Khalifa case, while presenting himself as a somewhat innocent opportunist.<\/p>\n<p>Serpent\u2019s Alleged Accomplice Declaration of Innocence\u200a\u2014\u200aSource: <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/zachxbt\/status\/1861450263925559399\">ZachXBT\u2019s Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>ZachXBT has sent a detailed report on the case to a victim of one of the account compromises with which ha has been working with, hopefully justice will be brought to Serpent\u2019s victims.<\/p>\n<h4>Scattered Spider Entraps Dozens in Their Web of\u00a0Scams<\/h4>\n<p>In November 2024, another major crypto crime story came to light: The Scattered Spider\u00a0Case.<\/p>\n<p>On November 20th, U.S. prosecutors charged five individuals in connection with an $11 million crypto theft scheme. The defendants\u200a\u2014\u200aNoah Urban (20, Florida), Evans Osiebo (20, Dallas), Ahmed Elbadawy (23, Texas), Joel Evans (25, North Carolina), and alleged leader Tyler Buchanan (22, Scotland)\u200a\u2014\u200awere charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity\u00a0theft.<\/p>\n<p>The group targeted at least 29 individuals, including a victim who lost over $6.3 million in cryptocurrency. Their tactic is a mix of sending phishing links via SMS or Telegram to more sophisticated methods, such as SIM-swapping attacks, enabling them to steal login credentials for work accounts or crypto exchanges.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of the $6.3 million theft, the victim\u2019s email was compromised, then the attacker, allegedly Elbdawy, accessed their cryptocurrency wallets.<\/p>\n<p>A court document alleges a victim was hacked for over $6.3 million in crypto. Source: PACER via <a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/us-charges-crypto-hackers-linked-scattered-spider\">Cointelegraph<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>SIM-swapping has caused significant damage in the crypto community. It cost them at least $13.3 million during the summer of 2023 and was also behind the $447 million hack of FTX in\u00a02022.<\/p>\n<p>We have discussed the subject at length in this\u00a0article:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/coinmonks\/enhancing-security-in-web3-exploring-2fa-its-limitations-and-the-menace-of-sim-swapping-f09f97136ff2\">Enhancing Security in Web3: Exploring 2FA, its Limitations, and the Menace of SIM Swapping<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The most interesting part of this case is who and what these five perpetrators are linked\u00a0to.<\/p>\n<p>They are accused of being active participants in the Scattered Spider group (UNC3944), whose first criminal activities date back to\u00a02021.<\/p>\n<p>The crypto crimes we discussed are, in fact, just the tip of the\u00a0iceberg.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2022, security researchers revealed that over 130 organizations, including Coinbase, Riot Games, and DoorDash, had been targeted by a phishing campaign through Okta, an identity provider used worldwide for remote employee access. Nearly 10,000 employees had their credentials stolen by the malicious group behind the attacks, initially dubbed \u201c0ktapus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c0ktapus\u201d Modus Operandi\u200a\u2014\u200aSource: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.group-ib.com\/blog\/0ktapus\/\">GROUP\u00a0IB<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But it quickly became apparent that \u201c0ktapus\u201d was no monolithic group.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities and security researchers discovered that the group was involved in nearly every type of hacking activity, mastering a wide range of scamming techniques.<\/p>\n<p>They appeared more as an aggregation of specialized subgroups, sometimes overlapping, with strong ties to other criminal organizations, particularly ransomware gangs. The widespread scope of their activities and their diverse membership led cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike to rebrand them with a fitting name in early 2023: \u201cScattered Spider.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Their most high-profile criminal acts were the September 2023 attacks on Caesars Entertainment and MGM casinos. The MGM breach, which cost the company over $100 million, led to days of disruption after Scattered Spider, in collaboration with the Russian ransomware group ALPHV, extorted MGM in exchange for their\u00a0files.<\/p>\n<p>In their November 2023 cybersecurity advisory, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cisa.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2023-11\/aa23-320a_scattered_spider_0.pdf\">the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency<\/a> categorized Scattered Spider as \u201ca cybercriminal group that targets large companies and their contracted IT help desks,\u201d which \u201ctypically engages in data theft for extortion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The modus operandi used is similar to the one in the crypto cases and\u00a00ktapus.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIn most instances, Scattered Spider threat actors conduct SIM swapping attacks against users that respond to the phishing\/smishing attempt.<\/em><em>The threat actors then work to identify the personally identifiable information (PII) of the most valuable users that succumbed to the phishing\/smishing, obtaining answers for those users\u2019 security questions.<\/em><em>After identifying usernames, passwords, PII, and conducting SIM swaps, the threat actors then use social engineering techniques to convince IT help desk personnel to reset passwords and\/or MFA tokens to perform account takeovers against the users in single sign-on (SSO) environments.\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aSource:\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cisa.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2023-11\/aa23-320a_scattered_spider_0.pdf\"><em>CISA<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In addition to their unconventional typology, Scattered Spider stands out for the unusually young age of its members, and this is no coincidence.<\/p>\n<p>In a September 2023 interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/09\/14\/mgm-cyberattack-outage-scattered-spider\/#:~:text=catch%20a%20kid,%E2%80%9D-,Nixon%20said,-.\">TechCrunch<\/a>, Allison Nixon, Chief Research Officer at Unit 221B, revealed that Scattered Spider deliberately recruits minors, also known as \u201cadvanced persistent teenagers,\u201d due to \u201cthe lenient legal environment these minors operate in and the fact that nothing will happen to them if the police catch a\u00a0kid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Minor or not, it appears that U.S. authorities have finally caught up with them after a long and arduous\u00a0chase.<\/p>\n<p>In January 2024, 19-year-old U.S.-based Noah Michael Urban was charged with wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiring with others to use SIM-swapping to steal cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<p><em>Noah Michael Urban\u200a\u2014\u200aSource: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/krebsonsecurity.com\/2024\/01\/fla-man-charged-in-sim-swapping-spree-is-key-suspect-in-hacker-groups-oktapus-scattered-spider\/\"><em>Krebonsecurity<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One week after the five were indicted, 19-year-old Remington Ogletree from California was arrested and charged with criminal activities related to Scattered Spider, activities that netted him over $4 million. Notably, he used a money laundering service that was part of an undercover FBI operation to launder more than $125,000.<\/p>\n<h3>Bonus Story\u200a\u2014\u200aCrypto Market Up, Kidnapping Up?<\/h3>\n<p>On November 6th, Dean Skurka, CEO of the Toronto-based crypto firm WonderFi Technologies, endured a terrifying ordeal when he was kidnapped.<\/p>\n<p><em>WonderFi CEO Dean Skurka. Source:\u00a0LinkedIn<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Forced into a car in downton Toronto during rushhour by multiple individuals, Skurka was told to pay up $1 million for his\u00a0release<\/p>\n<p>Left with little choice, he wired electronically and was later released in Centennial Park in Etobicoke, thankfully uninjured.<\/p>\n<p>WonderFi CEO Dean Skurka reportedly said in an email that he is \u201csafe\u201d now and that no company funds and data were impacted.<\/p>\n<p>After CBC broke the news, Skurka confirmed the kidnapping, assuring the public that he was safe and that no company funds or data had been\u00a0stolen.<\/p>\n<p>For anyone who has been following crypto news in 2024, this latest kidnapping comes as no surprise. Since the second half of the year, it seems that crimes against individuals related to crypto have been breaking news nearly every\u00a0week.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, it\u2019s the 16th reported case of physical attacks against crypto holders, executives, or influencers in\u00a02024.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most tragic cases occurred on July 28th, when a 29-year-old Moroccan Bitcoiner was kidnapped from his apartment, forced to transfer 3 BTC, and then strangled to death before being buried in a\u00a0forest.<\/p>\n<p>A closer look at a <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/jlopp\/physical-bitcoin-attacks\">GitHub repository<\/a> that attempts to record \u201cknown attacks against Bitcoin\/crypto asset-owning entities\u201d that are publicly reported quickly reveals that the occurrence of these crimes is intrinsically linked to the state of the crypto\u00a0market.<\/p>\n<p>If the market is up, physical attacks are\u00a0up.<\/p>\n<p>A trend confirmed by the GitHub creator, Jameson Lopp, co-founder and Chief Security Officer of Casa, a self-custody solution, in an interview with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/toronto\/kidnapping-toronto-businessman-cryptocurrency-1.7376679\">CBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Based on his data, the Skurka case is the 171st instance of physical attacks in crypto theft he has recorded since December\u00a02014.<\/p>\n<p>According to\u00a0him:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe rates of these kinds of incidents tend to correlate with the exchange rate of bitcoin.\u00a0[\u2026]<\/em><em>As the price goes up, more awareness of the space permeates throughout society, and as a result, more criminally minded people decide they want to try to figure out what the ROI of executing a physical attack against a known crypto holder\u00a0is.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For Lopp, violent attacks in crypto theft are also motivated by how convenient they can be for criminals compared to robbing a bank or an armored\u00a0truck.<\/p>\n<p>When you think about it, \u201ccrypto kidnapping\u201d can be considered, from a criminal perspective, as one of the most efficient forms of extortion. In this method, criminals can demand extremely large sums of money in the form of cryptocurrency, which can be transferred in a matter of minutes with just a few clicks. This makes the process faster, more discreet, and less physically demanding than traditional kidnapping.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, traditional kidnappings often involve more logistical challenges. Victims are unlikely to have millions of dollars lying around their homes, meaning family members must be mobilized to acquire the ransom from banks or other sources, adding complexity to the process. Moreover, the physical delivery of money in a traditional kidnapping creates more opportunities for law enforcement to track the ransom exchange, increasing the risk for the perpetrators.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, with crypto kidnapping, the use of digital currencies allows criminals to bypass these obstacles.<\/p>\n<p>With Bitcoin making headlines worldwide after breaking $100,000 in value, it\u2019s highly likely that large crypto holders will face an increased threat of such\u00a0crimes.<\/p>\n<p>One of its latest absurd victims isn\u2019t even human. A crypto ATM was stolen after a truck-ramming raid at a shopping center in Melbourne. Apparently, the digital nature of Bitcoin has eluded the\u00a0thieves.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/The_BTC_Express\/status\/1864705713701798338\">The Bitcoin\u00a0Express<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Our November 2024 crypto-criminal report ends\u00a0here!<\/p>\n<p>Dive into our H1 2024 and Q3 2024 crypto crime reports to stay updated on what happened this\u00a0year!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/coinmonks\/h1-2024-crypto-crime-report-2-billion-lost-to-hacks-scams-1a9b0ee46cb0\">H1 2024 CRYPTO CRIME REPORT: $2 Billion Lost to Hacks &amp; Scams<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/thecapital\/almost-1-billion-lost-q3-2024-crypto-crime-report-3d816b56225b\">Almost $1 Billion Lost: Q3 2024 Crypto Crime Report<\/a><\/p>\n<p>See you all next month for another crypto crime\u00a0report.<\/p>\n<p>Until then, stay\u00a0safe!<\/p>\n<h3>About us<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nefture.com\/\"><em>Nefture<\/em><\/a><em> is a <\/em><strong><em>Web3 real-time security and risk prevention platform<\/em><\/strong><em> that detects on-chain vulnerabilities and protects digital assets, protocols and asset managers from significant losses or\u00a0threats.<\/em><em>Nefture core services includes <\/em><strong><em>Real-Time Transaction Security<\/em><\/strong><em> and a <\/em><strong><em>Threat Monitoring Platform<\/em><\/strong><em> that provides accurate exploits detections and fully customized alerts covering hundreds of risk types with a clear expertise in\u00a0DeFi.<\/em><em>Today, Nefture proudly collaborates with leading projects and asset managers, providing them with unparalleled security solutions.<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nefture.com\/demo\"><strong><em>Book a\u00a0demo<\/em><\/strong><\/a><em>\ud83e\udd1d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/coinmonks\/132-million-lost-november-crypto-crime-report-6a60f1366228\">+132 Million Lost\u200a\u2014\u200aNovember Crypto Crime Report<\/a> was originally published in <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/coinmonks\">Coinmonks<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>+132 Million Lost\u200a\u2014\u200aNovember Crypto Crime\u00a0Report $132 million was lost to crypto crimes in November 2024, marking the lowest criminal bounty of the year\u200a\u2014\u200aclosely mirroring the downtrend observed since the end of\u00a0summer. Of that, $25.2 million was recovered, bringing the net effective loss to nearly $107 million. This decline has been fueled by the significant underperformance [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}