‘I suspected I was being socially engineered.’ Why crypto’s hacking epidemic is getting even worse
Michael Pearl thought he was being scammed.
The security firm Cyvers’ vice president of strategy told DL News that suspicious characters have approached him at crypto conferences, trying to sell him the moon.
“I have had a few cases where I suspected that I was being socially engineered,” he said.
“A person approaches you telling you a story that is too good to be true — who wants to invest in your company, wants to buy your product, and then they send you a link that seems suspicious.”
Social engineering is a strategy cybercriminals use to trick victims into clicking links laced with malware. It’s a kind of psychological manipulation that tricks people into letting their guard down. It is often the first point in digital attacks against crypto projects and can come from anywhere.
For instance, the Lazarus Group, the infamous North Korean hacking collective, has a history of using LinkedIn and fake job ads to woo victims.
The $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025, a January $282 million theft from a single crypto holder, and, this month, the Drift Protocol attack are just some of the heists that started with a social engineering.
And it’s getting worse. In October, crypto security firm Elliptic warned that social engineering attacks against crypto projects are on the rise. It’s part of growing concern among blockchain sleuths and traders that have noticed an explosion in cybercrime this year.
A small selection of headlines since the start of the year paint a harrowing picture.
The team behind Drift, a popular Solana-based exchange, was approached at a conference by seemingly well-meaning businesspeople before the project was drained for nearly $300 million.
In early April, a hacker minted $1.2 billion of counterfeit crypto out of thin air by tricking HyperBridge, a crypto bridge, into creating unbacked tokens.
Days later, Justin Sun, one of the industry’s most recognisable billionaire moguls, begged North Korean hackers believed to be behind the Kelp DAO hack to come forward and negotiate.
Last year saw hackers make away with record amounts of crypto. They stole more than $2.5 billion, according to DefiLlama data. So far this year, criminals have stolen $786 million from crypto projects.
While decentralised finance protocols were singled out, centralised systems — including America’s biggest exchange, Coinbase — were the biggest target.
Now, hackers are enthusiastic about DeFi again. The fast-moving and experimental space, once notorious for exploits, was thought to have matured, but it’s back in the limelight — and not for the right reasons.
