Crypto-related losses are falling sharply as hackers increasingly shifted away from complex technical exploits and toward manipulating user behavior, according to a new report from blockchain intelligence platform NOMINIS.
The firm’s monthly security analysis found that approximately $49.3 million was lost across major crypto incidents last month, a steep decline from the roughly $385 million recorded in January.
However, researchers say the lower total does not signal a safer environment. Instead, attackers are increasingly relying on social engineering techniques that trick users into granting access to their own funds.
According to the report, authorization abuse remained the dominant attack vector, with many victims unknowingly signing malicious transactions or approving token spending permissions that allowed attackers to drain their wallets.
“Rather than relying primarily on complex smart contract exploits, many attackers are focusing on manipulating transaction authorization and user behavior.”
A single infrastructure breach accounted for most of February’s losses.
Solana-based DeFi platform Step Finance suffered a compromise that allowed attackers to drain roughly 261,854 SOL, valued at about $30 million, after devices belonging to executives were reportedly compromised, exposing private keys or enabling malicious approvals.
Several other incidents involved private users falling victim to phishing approvals, malicious signatures, and address poisoning scams, where attackers create wallet addresses that closely resemble legitimate ones.
In one case, a victim mistakenly sent about $100,000 in USDT to a look-alike address after copying the wrong wallet from their transaction history.
Smart contract vulnerabilities were still present but typically caused smaller financial losses compared with attacks exploiting user permissions or operational security mistakes.
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Featured Image: Shutterstock/prodigital art/Natalia Siiatovskaia
