Major security incidents in the crypto sector in recent months have come not from smart contract flaws but from more sophisticated tactics such as fake identities and AI-generated scams, CoinDesk reported, citing Solana Foundation chief information security officer Michael Coates.

Coates said such weaknesses are likely to lead the next blockchain security threat, the report said.

Coates, who served as Twitter's CISO and led security at Mozilla, which develops the Firefox web browser, joined the Solana Foundation early this year. He is responsible not only for the foundation's own security but also for strengthening security capabilities across projects in the Solana ecosystem. He also meets regulators to set appropriate cybersecurity standards.

Crypto hacks often make headlines because the amounts stolen are large, but Coates stressed they often do not stem from flaws in the blockchain itself. In many cases, operational security problems or Web2 issues lead to key leaks, he said. As advances in AI give attackers more sophisticated tools, the situation is expected to become more serious.

Coates warned that social engineering attacks will become far worse with the power of AI and deepfakes, and spoofing calls that perfectly replicate the voice of someone a victim knows are bound to spread on a large scale.

To prevent that, Coates stressed that the crypto industry needs systems that operate safely even when users fall for scams.