by Vincent Muthee
While for a wide range of opportunities, the cryptocurrency industry is also known for a dark side involving scams and attacks. As per recent reports, August saw a surge in phishing attacks further bringing the dark side of crypto to light.
Furthermore, other forms of attacks were also on the rise in August as reports show the crypto industry recorded a total of $163M in losses to hacker attacks in August alone. From phishing attacks to social engineering, the crypto industry has become a prime target for cyber attacks.
Scam Sniffer Reports $12.17M Losses to Crypto Phishing Attacks
In a recent post on X, crypto anti-scam platform Scam Sniffer reported that crypto phishing attacks accounted for a total loss of $17.17 million to attackers. This value marks a 72% surge in losses compared to values recorded in July 2025.
The anti-scam platform further noted that there were a total of 15,230 individuals that fell victim to phishing attacks in August 2025. Same as the value of assets lost in August, the number of victims rose by 67% compared to a month earlier.
Scam Sniffer also highlighted that exploiters used the Ethereum EIP-7702 as the primarily tool to facilitate the crypto phishing attacks. Additionally, scammers utilized a new trick of asking victims to transfer the funds directly to phishing contracts. This resulted in three whales losing $5.62 million.
“Key insight: Sharp escalation driven by EIP-7702 batch-signature scams and direct transfers to phishing contracts. 3 whale hits totaled $5.62M (46%),” Scam Sniffer wrote.
The rise in phishing scams raises the alarm that crypto attacks, which had slowed down in the second quarter of 2025, started to rise towards the end of the second quarter and could potentially skyrocket towards the end of the year.
Hackers Stole a Total of $163 From the Crypto Industry in August
The conclusive amount of assets lost from the crypto industry in August was even higher. According to an earlier report by Crypto Rank, crypto victims lost a total of $163 to crypto hackers. The largest of them was a social engineering exploit on one Bitcoin whale, where the attackers made away with $91 million.
Other notable attacks in August 2025 includes the $54 million drain from Turkish exchange BtcTurk, $13 million drain from Venus Protocol, although this amount was fully restored and $7 million exploit from Odi.fun.
Additionally, hackers made away with $5 million and $4.5 million from Better Bank and CrediX, respectively. This pushes the total loss to crypto attackers in August to 15% more than that of July 2025.
A Call for More Vigilance!
Based on the data, crypto hackers are getting sneaky, especially with new tricks like EIP-7702 signature scams, as flagged by Scam Sniffer. These attackers pose as legit exchanges, sending fake emails, and even mailing letters to steal the seed phrases and passwords from victims.
However, as a crypto holder you can avoid falling victim by staying vigilant. Make sure to double-check URLs, use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) when surfing online, and avoid sharing private information.
#blockchain #crypto, #decentralized, #distributed, #ledger
