Cyber Criminals Netted $4.3B From Crypto-Related Crime in 2019: Study

Published on by Cointele | Published on

In terms of the most popular digital currency for illicit activities, bad actors primarily used Bitcoin for purchasing and selling of illegal drugs, weapons, as well as cyber and banking credentials.

Dark markets and malware attacks extensively employ other cryptocurrencies, including Ether, Litecoin, Monero, Bitcoin Cash and Dogecoin.

"The results show that privacy coins are barely used in dark markets and at dark vendor sites (e.g. only 4% of instances involve Monero. Instead, Bitcoin remains the coin of the realm in this shady world, with BTC used in 76% of dark market cases and ETC used in only 7% of instances."

When it comes to malware and ransomware, criminals reportedly used BTC in 98% of reported instances, while ETH was used only 1% of the time.

Among the most high-profile cases of cryptocurrency theft in recent months, a report from the United Nations states that North Korea netted around $2 billion by hacking banks and cryptocurrency exchanges in 2019.

x