Scammers Steal $11 Million in Bitcoins Over Four Years: Study

At least $11 million price of bitcoins are taken via scams within the last four years, in step with researchers from Southern Methodist University. the particular total price of bitcoins scammed is probably going so much higher, because it counts solely those scams that the researchers were able to track the revenue of.

Cybersecurity researchers Marie Vasek and Tyler Moore authored the study “There’s No gift, Even exploitation Bitcoin: chase the recognition and Profits of Virtual Currency Scams,” (PDF) that counted thirteen,000 victims of forty one totally different scams from 2011 to 2014. it had been partially funded by the Cyber Security Division of the USA Department of state Security’s Science and Technology board of directors, the govt. of Australia, and SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific.

The researchers ran AN SQL information dump of bitcoin transactions, and analyzed bitcoin addresses. They conferred their findings at the International money Cryptography and information Security Conference in city, Puerto RICO Act on.

The study divides all bitcoin scams into high-yield investment programs, or Ponzi schemes, mining investment scams, scam wallets, and exchange scams. Ponzi schemes took within the most far and away, and therefore the scams truly came back $4 million as they capitalized on greed and therefore the problem of determinative the legitimacy of internet services.

The most in scams take most of their revenue from simply a couple of of their victims, the researchers aforementioned.

“Bitcoin scams cause a haul for over the victims World Health Organization directly lose cash,” Moore aforementioned during a Phys.org report. “They threaten to undermine trust during this promising technology, and solid a chilling result on those curious about making an attempt out new services. By mining the general public record for dishonest transactions, we tend to hope to discourage would-be scammers and assist enforcement in cracking down on the dangerous actors.”

Bitcoin adoption is growing quickly, however the technology continues to own security problems. European exchange Bitstamp was forced to suspend commercialism earlier this month owing to a security drawback, and Blockchain.info lost AN calculable 250 bitcoins owing to a key generation issue in Dec.

A hacker scarf the same variety of bitcoins in August by hijacking miners’ traffic, a way of stealing that isn’t enclosed within the study.

Scammers Steal $11 Million in Bitcoins Over Four Years: Study