October has become the worst-ever month for crypto-related crimes with over $718 million in overall losses, and that’s with two more weeks to go before the month ends. Data pointed out by Chainalysis on Thursday noted the amount was stolen from several decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols across 11 different attacks. This year “will likely surpass 2021 as the biggest year for hacking on record,” Chainalysis researchers wrote. “So far, hackers have grossed over $3 billion across 125 hacks.” “Despite the current bear market, we’re seeing a lot of activity among hackers, who are targeting various protocols,” said Jasper Lee, audit tech lead at crypto auditing firm Sooho.io.
“For those protocols or dapps [decentralized apps] which have not been thoroughly audited, they make for easy and reliable short-term profit. Poorly protected protocols are low-hanging fruit for hackers, who make easy pickings of their too-easily accessed locked,” Lee added. Attackers gained over $3.2 billion in 2021. But 2022 was off to an even-rocky start with a $325 million exploit of popular cross-chain service Wormhole, which was followed by a $625 million attack on Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge, and then a $200 million exploit of the Nomad bridge.
Full report : October Becomes Worst Month for Crypto Hacks With Two Weeks to Go.
While these are the largest cryptocurrency hacks that have happened in the first two weeks of October 2022, OODA has been compiling a comprehensive Web3 incident database based on our research to categorize what compromises are taking place as well as document the root causes that plague Cryptos, DeFi, NFTs, and Web3 in general. Tracking root causes provides comprehensive insights into how innovators can create robust cyber risk management approaches and reduce the potential for consequential attacks. You can access the OODA comprehensive Crypto Incident tracker here.
