Around USD 300 million has been stolen through ICO (Initial Coin Offering) in 2017, with over 60,000 people falling victims of ransomware hacks.

These numbers are indicated in the recent Kaspersky Lab report.

In total, ICO attracted USD 3.5 billion throughout 2017.

Banki.ru reports with reference to the Kaspersky Lab bulletin that the hackers’ interest towards ICO comes from the significant amounts of money invested by the participants. An average ICO participant invests around USD 5,000.

06.10.2017 | 12:39 Unraveling ICO

“This year we registered more than two thousand ICO hacks. It is the most widespread mass method of money theft through ICO,” said Kaspersky Lab Chief Security Expert Alexander Gostev.

The second most popular way is the fishing websites (fake sites designed confusingly similar to a real product – Banks).

The third one is spam letters that convince people to invest in a fake ICO.

04.10.2017 | 16:31 Kasperky: The world will be ready for cryptocurrency in 300 years

“The fourth method of ICO fraud is theft by the organizers. Initially, many of them have good purposes, but when they get these huge amounts of money, they get giddy with it and can’t help but steal it,” noted Banki.ru.

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