A global phishing campaign, dubbed Operation Asterix, has been uncovered by cybersecurity firm Rapid7, targeting over 885,000 phone numbers across multiple countries. The scheme, which impersonated major cryptocurrency services such as Binance, Crypto.com, and Ledger, aimed to siphon assets from investors, with 5,576 Binance accounts specifically queued for attack.
The campaign, identified through data analysis, included a 316,002-entry file containing German mobile numbers, from which 43,066 accounts were matched—achieving a 13.6% success rate. Hacken, a blockchain security firm, reported that phishing and social engineering scams accounted for $306 million of $482 million in total crypto losses during the first quarter of this year.
Attackers exploited vulnerabilities in digital wallet ecosystems, with $588,000 stolen via a counterfeit Ledger Live app hosted on the Microsoft Store. A separate breach involving 14,000 Trezor users, linked to a data leak at shipping provider ShipMonk, further exposed vulnerabilities in hardware wallet security.
Additional losses included $1 million from an Ethereum phishing scam and $50 million from an address poisoning attack in December 2025, though the latter’s confirmation remains unverified. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao has previously called for stronger security measures to combat such threats.
Written by Daniel Brooks
Security Desk
