There is an average of a key attack per week.
This was just a prediction of Cypherpunk and software engineer Jameson Lopp. However, he emphasized that it seems that this trend is on the way this year, since there is a growing number of documented key attacks.
Increasing key attacos
In Publish in xLOPP stressed that 25 key attacks have been documented in the first 21 weeks of 2025.
“My prediction that we will average 1 attack per week this year is looking for the goal.”
In response to one of the Post’s responses, he said that there have been zero attacks reported in El Salvador and Nine in Dubai, since all attackers were quickly apprehended in these countries.
LOPP then shared that the success rate of key attacks in other countries remains stable with 60%, and failures generally result from general operational security practices instead of anything specific cryptographic.
Meanwhile, a commentator Suggested Using blocking time to protect against key attacks, sharing that they have blocked the time in their cold bitcoin storage for their child’s retirement, which makes it inaccessible to attackers.
In response, LOPP stated that the time locks are “complicated.” He cited Casa’s BlogHe explained that while time blockages can help prevent forced transactions during a key attack, they are complex to implement. It is because time blockages pose challenges for key rotation and wallet recovery.
In 2017, LOPP was attacked in a coup attack after a person who called Anonymous falsely reported a hostage situation at home, which caused a great police response. Swatting is a malicious act in which someone falsely informs a crime or emergency to the application of the law, which leads to an aggressive response, which often involves a SWAT team, the victim’s residence or workplace, as defined by Business intern.
Motivated for his participation as Crypt, the attacker later issued a demand for extortion of $ 50,000 worth $ BTC. LOPP refused to pay, instead of opting for extreme privacy measures and investigating the incident himself, which he detailed in a blog post entitled To hit a ladies.
What are key attacks?
A key attack is a physical coercion form in which an attacker uses threats, violence or even kidnapping to force a victim to deliver confidential information, such as key cryptocurrency.
Unlike cyber attacks that exploit digital vulnerabilities, the key key attacks by technological defenses completely by attacking the human element, regularly with brutal efficiency.
The term comes from a well -known webcomic that satirically indicates how an attacker could avoid the complexities of cryptographic piracy simply using a “$ 5” key to extract the necessary information through physical intimidation.
Key attacks in ascent: May 2025 attacks
As cryptocurrencies gain value and main attention, attacks on headlines are becoming more frequent. Criminals are increasingly addressed to known people or it is believed that they have large amounts of cryptography, with some of the most alarming incidents that involve kidnappings and rescue demands. In these cases, victims are often coerced under potentially deadly pressure to deliver their digital assets.
According to him Continuous record Compiled by LOPP, there were 18 documented physical attacks aimed at people with bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies in 2023, which increased to 24 incidents in 2024.
By January 2025, eight attacks had already been documented, followed by five each for February and March, and an additional case in April.
Here are the attacks registered only in the month of May:
- Cryptographic kidnapping of Paris: A man was kidnapped in Paris by masked assailants who demanded a rescue of € 5 to 7 million euros from his crypto-millionaire son.
- The victim was mutilated, with one of her cut fingers, and kept captive until the French police raided a suburban property and arrested five suspects in relation to the violent extortion plot.
- NYC Crypto Torture Salto: A cryptocurrency investor from Manhattan, John Woeltz, was arrested and accused of kidnapping, assault and illegal imprisonment after allegedly stop and torture an Italian tourist of 28 years in a luxury house in Soho.
- Police said the victim was retained for weeks, beaten and hung a shelf after refusing to give up his Bitcoin password. The victim finally escaped and is now in stable conditions.
- A second suspect, Beatrice Folchi, was also arrested. The authorities found firearms and polaroid photos documented.
- False Robertio of Uber Crypto: An American crypto -American tourist in London was allegedly drugged by a false uber driver who heist $ 123,000 worth $ BTC and $ XRP.
- The suspect passed a transport driver, drugged the victim and agreed to his cryptographic wallet during the match.
- Falling Paris kidnapping: An armed gang attempt To kidnap the daughter and grandson of the CEO of French Crypto Exchange Paymium in the 11th Paris District.
- The attackers, four masked men, tried to force the victims to a truck in broad daylight. The woman resisted, managed to disarm one of the assailants, and the attackers fled after they intervened.
- Paraguay Crypto theft bust: Three undocumented Chinese immigrants were deportee From Paraguay after being caught trying to steal mining cryptocurrency machines from the facilities of Teratech SA near the Itaipu hydroelectric dam.
- A fourth individual, a Paraguayan legal resident called Nahun MarÃa Velázquez Garcete, was arrested and accused of aggravated robbery.
- The authorities suspect that the group can have links with the installation and are investigating possible links with a broader criminal organization.
- Founder of the kidnapped Uganda cryptography: Festo VATAIBI, founder of the Uganda cryptographic education firm, Mitrouplus Labs, was kidnapped At gunpoint near his home in Kamampala on May 17, 2025.
- Armed men who go through military officers forced him to unlock multiple cryptographic wallets and transfer approximately $ 500,000 in cryptocurrencies to his accounts. The attackers also coerced the sale of some of the Afro tokens, a memes coin created by Mitroplus Labs.
In the Philippines, the Chinese Filipino businessman Anson who and his driver were kidnapped and then found dead in April 2025. A rescue of ₱ 200 million was partially paid in the cryptocurrency.
The authorities identified five suspects, including the alleged intellectual author David Tan Liao (in custody) and Kelly Tan Lim (still in general), who allegedly orchestrated the transfer of kidnapping and rescue. A ₱ 10 million reward for Kelly arrest is offered.
This article is published in Bitpins: 2025 sees the key attacks in the key when the weekly average reaches one
What else is happening in Crypto Philippines and beyond?
