The shift towards the adoption of cryptocurrencies has signaled a lull in the ongoing technological warfare. Over the course of the roughly one year span, there were attempts to exploit the various facets of the cryptocurrency landscape. But as cybercriminals evolve to new strategies, the digital asset domain went through exploitation infested with scams in the first quarter of 2025.
Amid the increase in the cyber attacks targeting the evolving world of cryptocurrency, the optimism is that the figures recorded in March showed a positive sign. There was a reduction of 78% in the figure for cyber-libertines claiming vast amounts for March compared to 2024’s inflation. The scammers were recorded at approximately $299 million in February and for March were at $28.8 million.
There is also a silver lining, and that is scammers not losing more than $28.8 million in March. Certik has reported lost amounts surpassing $1 billion in February, which contradicted the previous cybercrime-friendly decade of $1 trillion.
Where there was hope, there was lust; daring dreams come true, so succumbed the world where new looted bounty was garnered. However bad the situation is, the huge heist of Bybit destroyed the background balance in February. This included a multitude of various securities, using them and gaining with just inordinate amounts until even recuperating the 13 million bucks they drafted to Abracadabra. Money was due to optics so smart contracts burned.”
Abracadabra.Money: A Smart Contract Exploit
The Abracadabra.Money incident featured an exploiter who took advantage of the untapped potential within the protocol’s smart contract. The attacker granted himself loans that required no repayments, siphoning off $13 million in total funds. Even after attempting to recover the stolen funds by raising its bounty from 10% to 20%, Abracadabra.Money has yet to receive a response from the hacker.
Zoth Protocol: A Deployer Wallet Compromise
An alarming hack included Zoth, a restaking protocol that centers on tangible assets, as one of its victims. Owning the deployer wallet, the attacker managed to seize over $8.4 million in crypto assets. The theft culminated in a swift conversion of these assets into stablecoins, evidencing the rapid and multifaceted nature of modern-day crypto hacking.
A Recovery Success Story: 1inch’s Deal with a Hacker
March has also painted a more favorable view of fund recovery success stories. The decentralized exchange 1inch emerged as a winner after managing to recover a chunk of the $5 million that was stolen in a March 5 exploit. The 1inch team resolved the matter by negotiating a deal with the hacker that involved returning the funds in exchange for a part of the bounty offered.
The ethical hacker seemingly did not want to stretch the negotiation further and returned 4.5 million dollars, thus demonstrating that negotiation and ethical hacking can indeed assist in asset recovery.
Phishing Scams: Continuing Issues
While there was a drop in direct attacks on protocols and exchanges, phishing scams remained a problematic trend throughout March. Crypto investigator ZachXBT raised the alarm that the market could have incurred losses of up to 46 million dollars from phishing scams, which involve the creation of fraudulent websites and messages that closely resemble those of legitimate platforms to deceive users into surrendering their private keys or login information. The article also reported a particularly devastating case where an anonymous user on Coinbase purportedly lost 400 BTC, translating to 34 million dollars, due to a phishing attack.
International Collaborations: Warning From Australia’s National Police
The Australian Federal Police had to go as far as warning 130 users of a particular phishing message scam aimed at crypto users. Scammers spoofed exchange transaction notifications and tricked users into creating wallets with recovery phrases they had pre-set, thereby giving complete control of their funds.
Final Statement: Reasonable Prudence
The sharp decline in estimated losses due to crypto scams during the months of February and March provides some reason for reasonable prudence. It indicates that there is some progress in the ongoing battle against crypto crime due to enhanced security implementations, improved reaction times from the platforms, and successful rescues of the funds. However, the existence of phishing scams and other sophisticated contract scam exploits emphasizes the need for vigilance and strict protective measures. There is a need for the crypto community to fortify their defenses against emerging threats.
