Ice Lounge Media

Ice Lounge Media

In 2010, a programmer who was mining bitcoin famously made the comically expensive mistake of spending 10,000 bitcoin on two pizzas. As of this writing, those coins would be worth $850 million dollars. While there are few comparisons to that kind of miscalculation, the prospect of adding interest payments to fast-food orders is raising concerns […]
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Social network Bluesky, an alternative to X built on open source technologies, has scored a big win in terms of attracting notable users to its platform. The company on Sunday confirmed that former president Barack Obama has joined its service. Bluesky OOO Rose Wang replied to a post where someone wondered if the account posting […]
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Crypto security will always be a game of ‘cat and mouse’  — Wallet exec

Cryptocurrency wallet providers are getting more sophisticated, but so are bad actors — which means the battle between security and threats is at a deadlock, says a hardware wallet firm executive.

“It will always be a cat and mouse game,” Ledger chief experience officer Ian Rogers told Cointelegraph when describing the constant race between crypto wallet firms adding new security features and hackers finding more advanced ways to access victims’ wallets.

Rogers said, unfortunately, the most straightforward scams work best because scammers rely on people making simple mistakes.

“People give their 24-word phrases to people every day, so as long as that happens, then they are going to go for the low-cost tax,” he said, adding:

“Anyone who asks for your 24 words is a criminal.”

Rogers highlighted a common crypto scam where victims get tricked by replies under “any post on Twitter about crypto,” with messages like “DM me, and I’ll help you.”

“You know that scammers are always asking you for your 24 words,” Rogers said. CertiK chief business officer Jason Jiang recently told Cointelegraph that being aware of phishing attacks on social media can drastically increase a user’s crypto security.

Sometimes, scammers hijack the accounts of well-known industry figures to post malicious links, making it even harder for users to spot the scam.

In September 2023, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s account was compromised, leading to a fake NFT giveaway that tricked followers into clicking — only to drain over $691,000 from their wallets.

Cryptocurrencies, Security, Ledger, Hacks

Source: CertiK

Rogers emphasized that this will always be the case, just as bad actors aren’t limited to crypto — scams like fake emails from the “Nigerian president” have been around for years.

“The cost of the attack is always commensurate with the size of the prize, right?” Rogers said. In 2024, crypto hacks jumped 15% from 2023, with over $3 billion stolen.

Related: Hacker steals $8.4M from RWA restaking protocol Zoth

Meanwhile, pig butchering scams have emerged as one of the most pervasive threats to crypto investors, with losses on the Ethereum network costing the industry $5.5 billion across 200,000 identified cases in 2024.

Pig butchering is a type of phishing scheme that involves prolonged and complex manipulation tactics to trick investors into willingly sending their assets to fraudulent crypto addresses.

Magazine: Dummies guide to native rollups: L2s as secure as Ethereum itself

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Welcome back to Week in Review! We’ve got tons of stories to share from this week, like the greatest hits from Nvidia GTC; the NASA astronauts finally came home; Rippling’s lawsuit; and Google bought Wiz. Let’s get to it! Google finally does it: Google made its biggest acquisition in its history this week when it […]
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