Kaspersky Lab recorded a massive outbreak of phishing attacks in messengers and social networks at the end of the first half of the year. Phishing attacks resulted in theft of$ 2.3 million in cryptocurrencies.

Kaspersky Lab notes the growing popularity of such a fraudulent way to steal cryptocurrencies, like phishing. With the help of fraudelent sites imitating crypto wallets and exchanges, scammers managed to steal cryptocurrencies worth $2.3 million.

"The most popular cryptocurrency for phishers currently is Etherium (ETH). According to the calculations of Kaspersky Lab (based on data from more than a thousand ETH-addresses used by cybercriminals), in the second quarter of 2018, using fraudelent ICOs sites, scammers were able to blow away more than $2 million from credulous users, and this data does not take into account classical phishing," the company noted.

The most popular methods of phishing were fraudulent giveaways of cryptocurrency, when scammers imitated accounts of well-known individuals and companies and promised on their behalf to give away cryptocurrencies, and fake sites of cryptocurrency services.

Kaspersky Lab specialists managed to prevent 58,000 attempts of users to go to fake sites of cryptocurrency services. Analysts of the company note that the phishing pages of ICO projects are increasingly advertised in major search engines.

Overall, in the second quarter of 2018, Kaspersky Lab's anti-phishing system prevented more than 107 million attempts of users to open phishing sites. It is 17 million more than in the first quarter of 2018.

"Such a growth, most likely, indicates that most users still underestimate the danger of phishing and due to lack of attention or knowledge are not capable of recognizing fraud," Nadezhda Demidova, leading analyst of Kaspersky Lab, states.

According to Kaspersky Lab research, fraudsters began to intensively use WhatsApp for viral distribution of their content.