As long as victims keep falling for handing over their 24-word seed phrase, bad actors will keep going for the easiest payday, says a crypto executive.
Cryptocurrency wallet providers are getting more sophisticated, but so are bad actors — which means the battle between security and threats is at a deadlock, says a hardware wallet firm executive.
“It will always be a cat and mouse game,” Ledger chief experience officer Ian Rogers told Cointelegraph when describing the constant race between crypto wallet firms adding new security features and hackers finding more advanced ways to access victims’ wallets.
Rogers said, unfortunately, the most straightforward scams work best because scammers rely on people making simple mistakes.
“People give their 24-word phrases to people every day, so as long as that happens, then they are going to go for the low-cost tax,” he said, adding:
“Anyone who asks for your 24 words is a criminal.”
Rogers highlighted a common crypto scam where victims get tricked by replies under “any post on Twitter about crypto,” with messages like “DM me, and I’ll help you.”
“You know that scammers are always asking you for your 24 words,” Rogers said. CertiK chief business officer Jason Jiang recently told Cointelegraph that being aware of phishing attacks on social media can drastically increase a user’s crypto security.
Sometimes, scammers hijack the accounts of well-known industry figures to post malicious links, making it even harder for users to spot the scam.
In September 2023, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s accou