Briefs · Emerging Technologies
Crypto's Thieves Have Stopped Hacking Code. They Are Hacking People — and It Pays Better
Crypto’s thieves have stopped hacking code. They are hacking people — and it pays better.
CertiK reported on 31 January that roughly $370.3 million was lost to exploits and scams in January 2026, across 40 incidents. It was the highest monthly total in eleven months, nearly four times January 2025’s $98 million and more than three times December 2025’s $117.8 million.
Phishing did the damage: $311.3 million of the total. One victim alone lost about $284 million on 16 January, in a social-engineering scam impersonating Trezor support, tricked into sharing a recovery phrase. The largest code exploit of the month, Truebit, took $26.6 million. Phishing, not programming, is the growth business.
About $4.36 million was recovered. That is the good news, and it is barely one percent of what was taken.
The lesson is uncomfortable for an industry built on trustless code. The code mostly held. The humans did not.
Conclusion: the weakest link in crypto is not the code, but rather the customer — and January proved it, to the tune of $370 million.
Read the original at Cointelegraph
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