Chainalysis: October becomes a record-breaking month for crypto platforms hacks

In total, 11 hacks worth $718 million were committed in the first half of the month

13.10.2022 - 09:00

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2 min

What’s new? According to analytics company Chainalysis, the first half of October was a record for the number of attacks committed against cryptocurrency projects. About $718 million was stolen from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols in 11 hacks.

1/ After four hacks yesterday, October is now the biggest month in the biggest year ever for hacking activity, with more than half the month still to go. So far this month, $718 million has been stolen from #DeFi protocols across 11 different hacks. pic.twitter.com/emz36f6gpK— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) October 12, 2022

What other data has been provided? Chainalysis said that if this trend continues, 2022 will surpass 2021 in the number of hacks and will become a record for the entire history of observations. To date, analysts have recorded 125 attacks for all time, so far in which hackers have managed to steal more than $3 billion.

In this, while in 2019 most of the attacks were committed against centralized exchanges (CEX), in 2022 hackers focused on DeFi protocols. Cross-chain bridges have become a major target for hackers. In October, 3 bridges were hacked at once for a total of $600 million, accounting for 82% of losses this month and 64% of all losses for the year.

On October 7, hackers withdrew more than $100 million in cryptocurrency from the BNB Chain blockchain. They exploited a vulnerability in the BSC Token Hub cross-chain bridge and were able to conduct a double-spending attack. And on October 12, auditing firm OtterSec reported a hacking attack on DeFi platform Mango built on the Solana blockchain, which also resulted in the project losing more than $100 million in cryptocurrency.

In August, the FBI outlined the most common types of attacks on DeFi projects and called for making sure that the platform’s code has been audited by at least one independent company before investing.

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