AI-powered fraud targeting cryptocurrencies is gaining traction with the industry targeting 88% of exploits.
“As AI-driven fraud remains the most prominent challenge across several industries, cryptocurrencies are the top targeted sector (accounting for 88% of all deepfake cases detected in 2023), followed by fintech (8% )”.
sumsub research
The findings are published by sumsub research, a company that provides online identity verification tools.
The report also adds that between 2022 and 2023 the number of deepfakes detected worldwide in all industries multiplied by 10.
In terms of regional differences, there was a 1,740% increase in deepfake cases in North America, the main target of hackers. While scams in Asia Pacific increased by 1,530%, compared to 780% in Europe (including the UK), 450% in the Middle East and Africa and 410% in Latin America.
The country that experiences the most deepfakes is Spain, the most fake document in the world is the United Arab Emirates passport, while Latin America is the region where fraud has increased in all countries, according to the report.
The crypto industry has already faced a series of attacks and thefts this month. Earlier this month, an attacker undermined the internal exchange price of oPEPE and ended up stealing over $2 million from the Onyx protocol.
Additionally, the Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange suffered a hacker attack.
Poloniex owner Justin Sun confirmed the hack and said that Poloniex will compensate users’ losses at its own expense.
While earlier this year there was another attack on a crypto wallet that was linked to the largest exchange by market cap, Binance. According to the analysis, the cybercriminal quickly exchanged the stolen funds for Ethereum (ETH). To cover his tracks, he used services like FixFloat and ChangeNow.
