{"id":10457,"date":"2026-03-12T05:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T05:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/crypto-thieves-pivot-to-phishing-as-protocol-hacks-decline-in-february\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T05:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T05:11:07","slug":"crypto-thieves-pivot-to-phishing-as-protocol-hacks-decline-in-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/crypto-thieves-pivot-to-phishing-as-protocol-hacks-decline-in-february\/","title":{"rendered":"Crypto Thieves Pivot To Phishing As Protocol Hacks Decline In February"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bybit blocked more than $300 million in unauthorized withdrawals during the final quarter of last year \u2014 a figure that puts February’s total crypto<\/a> theft losses in sharp relief.<\/p>\n

According to security firm Nominis<\/a>, close to $50 million was stolen across the entire crypto industry last month, a fraction of what Bybit alone says it turned away in just three months.<\/p>\n

Attackers Home In On Human Error<\/h2>\n

The drop from January’s $385 million in losses might look like progress, but security researchers say the more significant story is where the attacks are coming from.<\/p>\n

Social engineering<\/a> \u2014 scams that trick people into handing over access \u2014 caused more cumulative damage in February than traditional software exploits did.<\/p>\n

Phishing campaigns climbed sharply during the month, with criminals sending fraudulent messages designed to get users to click malicious links or sign transactions they shouldn’t.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The most common method was authorization abuse. Victims were manipulated into granting wallet permissions without realizing what they’d approved.<\/p>\n

Once those permissions were in place, attackers could move funds out freely. Private individuals bore the brunt of these attacks, not exchanges or large protocols.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One Breach Drove Most Of The Damage<\/h2>\n

A single incident accounted for most of February’s losses. Step Finance<\/a>, a portfolio analytics platform built on Solana, was drained of approximately $30 million. Strip that one event out, and February would have been remarkably quiet by recent standards.<\/p>\n

The broader numbers back that up. Blockchain security company PeckShield<\/a> put February losses at $26.5 million \u2014 the lowest monthly figure since March 2025.<\/p>\n

PeckShield credited stronger risk controls and better security practices across the industry for part of the decline.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nBig Losses Still Loom Over The Industry<\/p>\n

Even with a quieter month on the books, the industry’s annual toll remains staggering. Data from Chainalysis<\/a> shows crypto hacks cost the industry $3.4 billion last year. That figure underscores how much ground still needs to be covered before theft can be called a contained problem.<\/p>\n

Bybit’s own numbers offer a window into how much active work that requires. The exchange said its fraud systems flagged roughly 350 high-risk addresses and stopped around 8,000 users from falling into potential scams \u2014 all in a single quarter.<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that while large-scale protocol attacks appear to be easing, the rise in scams targeting everyday users signals that criminals are simply redirecting their efforts.<\/p>\n

Better smart contract audits and stronger on-chain monitoring may be closing one door. But as long as people can be deceived into approving the wrong transaction, another door stays open.<\/p>\n

Featured image from Trillium Mutual Insurance<\/em>, chart from TradingView<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bybit blocked more than $300 million in unauthorized withdrawals during the final quarter of last year \u2014 a figure that puts February’s total crypto theft losses in sharp relief. According to security firm Nominis, close to $50 million was stolen across the entire crypto industry last month, a fraction of what Bybit alone says it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[65,73,1769,19,72,1789,4405,4809,4810],"class_list":["post-10457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency-market-news","tag-bitcoin","tag-btc","tag-bybit","tag-crypto","tag-cryptocurrency-market-news","tag-hack","tag-phishing","tag-social-engineering","tag-step-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcotasks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}