Tax season fuels rise in crypto wallet scams, Kaspersky reports
Crypto holders are not the only targets. Kaspersky found a larger number of phishing sites in the same countries that were stealing personal information from regular taxpayers. One fake site in Chile promised a tax refund of about $375, but then took money directly from the victims credit card. In Colombia, fake government websites tricked people into downloading ZIP files that were password-protected and installed malware on their devices. A French campaign pretended to be a tax auditor and sent out a PDF with malware instead of an official document, warning people about incomplete income filings. In Brazil, scammers set up websites that claim to help people file their taxes for a fee. They then collect names, phone numbers, addresses, birth dates, email addresses, and taxpayer identification numbers (TINs). Kaspersky said that giving out a TIN makes victims vulnerable to fake loan applications, hacked government accounts, and more social engineering attacks. A growing threat environment for crypto holders Tax phishing schemes expose crypto holders to danger from multiple sides. In January 2026, French crypto tax application Waltio disclosed that hackers from the group “Shiny Hunters” claimed to have stolen personal data from ~50,000 users, according to Cryptopolitans reporting at the time. Waltio, which helps users calculate capital gains for