Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins have established themselves as benchmark monetary vehicles, and, despite volatility, their values continue to rise. In October 2025, the value of cryptocurrency and other digital assets topped $4 trillion.
Yet, with this burgeoning value and liquidity comes more attention from cybercriminals and digital thieves. The Bybit attack demonstrates how focused sophisticated attackers are on finding ways to break the security measures that guard the crypto ecosystem, says Charles Guillemet, chief technology officer of Ledger, a provider of secure signer platforms.
”The attackers were very well organized, they have plenty of money, and they are spending a lot of time and resources trying to attack big stuff, because they can,” he says. “In terms of opportunity costs, it’s a big investment, but if at the end they earn $1.4 billion it makes sense to do this investment.”
But it also demonstrates how the crypto threat landscape has pitfalls not just for the unwary but for the tech savvy too. On the one hand, cybercriminals are using techniques like social engineering to target end users. On the other, they are increasingly looking for vulnerabilities to exploit at different points in the cryptocurrency infrastructure.
Historically, owners of digital assets have had to stand against these attackers alone. But now, cybersecurity firms and cryptocurrency-solution providers are offering new solutions, powered by in-depth threat research.
A treasure trove for attackers
One of the advantages of cryprocurrency is self custody. Users can save their private keys—the critical piece of alphanumeric code that proves ownership and grants full control over digital assets—into either a software or hardware wallet to safeguard it.
But users must put their faith in the security of the wallet technology, and, because the data is the asset, if the keys are lost or forgotten, the value too can be lost.
”If I hack your credit card, what is the issue? You will call your bank, and they will manage to revert the operations,” says Vincent Bouzon, head of the Donjon research team at Ledger. “The problem with crypto is, if something happens, it’s too late. So we must eliminate the possibility of vulnerabilities and give users security.”