Cryptocurrency hackers have now stolen over $1.2 billion, following the latest hacks in August, raising further concerns about widespread crypto adoption.
The crypto industry saw a total of $1.21 billion worth of digital assets lost to hacks and rug pulls year-to-date (YTD) in 2024 across 154 individual exploits.
This represents a 15.5% increase compared to the same period in 2023, when losses totaled just over $1 billion, according to an Immunefi report shared with Cointelegraph.
The worrying development could potentially see hackers surpassing the amount stolen in 2023, according to Mitchell Amador, the founder and CEO of Immunefi. He told Cointelegraph:
“It’s difficult to make predictions, but the ecosystem is always at risk of one severe and successful exploit that could significantly increase these numbers. We must remain vigilant at all times to mitigate such risks.”
The report comes over a month after a hacker stole over $230 million from WazirX, an Indian cryptocurrency exchange, in the second-largest cryptocurrency hack of 2024 so far.
Related: Nearly 80% of hacked cryptocurrencies never recover in price — Immunefi
Monthly hacks fall 94% in August
Although hackers have already surpassed their previous year’s activity in 2024 year-to-date, there has been a noticeable decline in the number of hacks from month to month.
Hackers stole over $15 million worth of crypto in August, which is 94% less than the $274 million stolen in July.
Most of this sum was lost in two major incidents, including the $9.8 million Ronin Network hack and the $1.5 million Nexera exploit.
Both exploits stem from a vulnerability during code upgrade, noted Immunefi’s Amador:
“Both the Ronin and Convergence incidents this month were due to vulnerabilities introduced during code upgrades. Convergence clarified in their post-mortem that they had “modified [that] part of the code post-audit,” which highlights the critical importance of maintaining a security-first approach at every step.”
Most of 2024 losses are attributed to CeFi infrastructure
While decentralized finance (DeFi) accounted for all the exploits in August, centralized finance (CeFi) remains the biggest vulnerability for crypto security.
While we generally see a higher number of DeFi exploits, CeFi incidents can be more catastrophic and lead to hundreds of millions in stolen value, explained Amador:
“Most of the losses in 2024 have been attributed to attacks on CeFi infrastructure. Although there were no reported or successful CeFi attacks this month, it doesn’t necessarily mean these threats aren’t occurring or won’t lead to future losses.”
Immunefi is a prominent onchain crowdsourced cybersecurity platform, safeguarding over $190 billion in user funds.
