Cryptocurrencies have flipped a lot of norms around the world. From finance and banking to e-commerce, it would appear there is no industry where cryptocurrencies haven’t made their presence felt.

While many industries were disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the crypto industry didn’t experience a dent — instead, it soared even higher. Cryptocurrencies boomed as more people became interested in decentralized currencies as a safe haven amid global economic tension.

Crypto Scams And Hacks Soar

However, risks persist amidst the perceived optimism. The crypto world is experiencing an increasing number of attacks and continues to draw more scammers. Scammers stole more than $14 billion in 2021, with losses from crypto-crime rising by 80% compared to 2020, according to a report by blockchain research group Chainalysis.

In the first six months of the year, experts at Group-IB have identified more than 2,000 domains being used as fake crypto promotion pages. The number of fake pages promoting fake giveaways increased sharply from 583 in the first quarter to over 1,500 in the second quarter.

Hackers have also targeted crypto exchanges and blockchain platforms to steal large amounts of valuable digital currencies. At least 46 crypto exchanges and blockchain platforms have reported losing over $2 billion since 2012 because of security breaches in their system.

Worldwide Crackdown On Crypto Scams And Hacks

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has called for other federal organizations to expand and increase their crackdown on crypto scams and hacks.

In the U.K., experts have warned that crypto scamming could get worse as the cost of living rises. 

“We are concerned that, in current economic circumstances, people could be tempted to invest in fake investments,” said Nausicaa Delfas, interim chief executive of the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Securing Blockchain Ecosystems With Smart Contract Auditing

With so much money at stake and blockchain protocols becoming more complex, smart contract auditing firms such as Chainsulting are gaining importance as a necessity in a fairly unregulated space. Smart contract auditing is a systematic method of manually and automatically reviewing the structured code of a smart contract to find flaws.

A smart contract audit is a useful tool to assess a company’s operations and ensure that the code is accurate and reflecting the use case. The auditor will conduct a comprehensive review of the smart contract codebase and make recommendations on how to fix possible flaws. Smart contract auditing has many advantages, including ensuring security, preventing vulnerabilities and securing user funds.

Chainsulting audits involve several stages. First, the code goes through automated vulnerability tests in which security analysis tools such as Mythril, Slither and Oyente are used to detect security vulnerabilities. The code is then checked manually for weaknesses before the general function of the code and business logic is double-checked. If any critical issues are found, the team makes recommendations on how to resolve them.

Chainsulting has conducted over 300 notable smart contract security audits since its inception in 2017.

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