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In addition to individual attacks on crypto traders, many companies have fallen victim to hacks and other thefts in the last six months.
Despite increasing security measures within the crypto industry, cybercrimes continue to proliferate. In the first half of the year, crypto traders lost nearly $60 million to hackers. According to data from blockchain research company Scam Sniffer, these criminals stole $314 million from decentralized protocols compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), a computation engine that executes smart contracts on the Ethereum network.
Methods of Attack
The hack affected up to 260,000 traders, with 20 of them losing $1 million each to the hackers. The criminals also siphoned $11 million from a single wallet belonging to an unknown victim, bringing the total to a staggering $58 million in just six months.
This figure represents a 6.44% increase from the $295 million stolen throughout 2023.
Scam Sniffer explained that hackers gained access to victims’ accounts through phishing attacks, which helped them acquire credentials without authorization. Victims were lured into phishing sites via comments from impersonated X (formerly Twitter) accounts, masquerading as legitimate owners.
After drawing victims to fake sites using profiles of popular and trusted personalities and entities, the hackers hunted for their signatures from various platforms, including Permit, IncreaseAllowance, and Uniswap Permit2.
The blockchain firm disclosed that most of the funds stolen in H1 2024 were drained from staking and restaking pools, Aave collateral, and Pendle tokens.
“Most of the large thefts involved assets in Staking, Restaking, Aave Collateral, and Pendle tokens,” said Scam Sniffer.
Company Losses
In addition to individual attacks on crypto traders, many companies have fallen victim to hacks and other thefts in the last six months. Companies such as DMM, a Japanese crypto exchange, lost $305 million to criminals who exploited vulnerabilities on the platform.
In February, PlayDapp, a blockchain gaming protocol was hit with a cyber attack that saw criminals steal about $290 million. One month later, hackers targeted UwU Lend, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform focused on lending and borrowing, resulting in the loss of about $20 million in customer funds.
These attacks continued till June with companies like BtcTurk, and Lykke losing $100 million and $22 million respectively to the thieves.
Thankfully, there has not been any record of hacks this month as of Friday, June 5. Although blockchain security firm CertiK, recently said that crypto hacks alone resulted in the theft of $1.19 billion from the industry in the first half of 2024.
On July 4, SlowMist, another crypto security firm, announced it helped secure $20.66 million that hackers attempted to steal from the crypto market this year.
The company said that in the second quarter, it received 467 stolen fund reports from users across different sectors of the industry and helped thwart criminals from stealing funds from 13 different platforms.
