The cryptocurrency industry has faced its most damaging month in terms of thefts, scams and crypto exploitations, with criminals making off with $363 million in November, blockchain security report reveals.

According to the firm CertiK, in a November 30 post on X (former Twitter), exploitation attacks accounted for approximately $316.4 million, flash loans caused $45.5 million in damages, while exit schemes resulted in losses of $1.1 million.

The largest exploitations occurred in Poloniex and HTX/Heco Bridge, with losses of 131.4 million and 113.3 million, respectively. The third most significant exploit affected a single victim, who lost $27 million due to a sophisticated phishing attack.

The $45 million KyberSwap attack accounted for the majority of damage caused by flash loan attacks in the month. These figures surpass the previous record from September, with 329 million, mainly attributed to the 200 million attack on Mixin Network.

As of the end of November, cumulative losses from flash loan exploits, scams and attacks in 2023 amount to $1.7 billion, representing 54% of cryptocurrencies drained in all of 2022 and matching 2021 losses, according to CertiK.

Ronghui Gu, co-founder of CertiK, argues that standard smart contract audits are no longer sufficient, as criminals continue to find new ways to exploit protocols and victims. Vulnerabilities such as SIM swapping and multi-signature are the latest security tactics capitalized on by criminals.

Christian Seifert, a researcher at security firm Forta Network, warns that these exploits are hindering cryptocurrency adoption, likening it to losing all your savings due to a bank robbery.

K. Tovar

Source: Cointelegraph

(Reference image source: Unsplash+)

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La entrada $363 million in cryptocurrencies stolen in November apareció primero en Bitfinance.

September stands as the worst month of 2023 in terms of cryptocurrency-related exploits. During this month, a serious setback was recorded with the theft of $329.8 million in digital assets.

CertiK, a blockchain security firm, noted that the most shocking event of the month was the attack on the Mixin Network on September 23. In the said incident, the Hong Kong-based cross-chain transfer protocol suffered the loss of 200 million due to a vulnerability in its cloud service provider.

Adding all the incidents in September, the loss of approximately 332 million is confirmed due to exploits, hacks and scams. Exit scams accounted for around $1.9 million, while flash loans reached $0.4 million. However, exploits took the largest share with nearly 329.8 million in losses. For more details, keep reading below.

Other relevant events of the month include the attacks on the exchange platforms CoinEx and Stake.com, which resulted in losses of 53 and 41 million, respectively.

The North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group was identified as responsible for both attacks. According to the latest figures from Dune Analytics, the group currently holds $45.6 million in cryptocurrencies.

This recent attack has raised the total amount of cryptocurrency lost so far this year due to exploits to a staggering 925.4 million. In this sense, the month of July ranked second in terms of losses due to exploits, with 285.8 million stolen.

In addition to the aforementioned losses, 1.9 million were reported in exit scams, 400,000 in flash loan attacks and another 25 million in phishing attacks, according to CertiK data.

In summary, the total losses in 2023 due to exploits, scams and hacks already amount to an astronomical figure of USD 1.34 billion.

According to blockchain security company Beosin, total losses from hacks, phishing scams, and exit scams in the third quarter of 2023 were around $890 million. These losses even exceeded the sum of the first two quarters, which reached 330 million in the first quarter and 333 million in the second, as reported by Beosin at the end of last week.

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Source: Cointelegraph

(Referential image source: Kanchanara, Unsplash)

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La entrada September emerged as the worst month for cryptocurrency exploits apareció primero en Bitfinance.

Over the course of July, the cryptocurrency world has seen several high-impact hacks and exploits, as well as an increase in legislative activity related to cryptocurrency and digital assets.

The De.Fi report reveals that, sadly, only a total of $6.15 million has been recovered, which represents less than 1 % of all cryptocurrencies and digital assets that were stolen during this period. This fact has highlighted the insufficient speed and effectiveness of the recovery efforts undertaken.

De.Fi researchers point out that the cryptocurrency industry’s ability to recover stolen or lost funds is critical to mitigating the impact of these unfortunate incidents.

In terms of losses, the Ethereum network has been the most affected, with a total of 447 million lost in 36 cases, including the Multichain hack, which resulted in a loss of USD 231 million, and the Alphapo exploit, which cost around of 100 million dollars.

The second most affected network was Base, which lost $23 million in a single case, while Binance ranked third with losses close to $11 million spread across 18 cases.

Analysis of the losses reveals that “access control issues” were responsible for most of the funds lost in July, with a total of 364 million. The “rugpulls”, which totaled more than 38 cases, caused losses of approximately 36 million, while the re-entry attacks caused losses of about 78 million.

However, the report also strikes a positive note: no exit scams were reported during the month of July, which is a welcome relief for the cryptocurrency community.

In summary, the cryptocurrency market is going through a difficult period, with significant losses and the need to improve recovery efforts. The security and protection of digital assets remain a top priority for the industry.

K. Tovar

Source: Cointelegraph

(Reference image source: Jievani Weerasinghe, Unsplash)

Visit our news channel on Google News and follow us to get accurate, interesting information and stay up to date with everything. You can also see our daily content on Twitter and Instagram

La entrada Cryptocurrency market suffered in July the worst month of the year apareció primero en Bitfinance.