The cryptocurrency industry has lost more than $3 billion to hackers since the start of this year through 125 major security incidents, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
October Records Highest Number of Hacks
In a Wednesday report, Chainalysis noted that October recorded the highest number of hacks this year, with four attacks on Tuesday. So far, hackers have drained approximately $718 million from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
(Source: Chainalysis)
The company described it as the “biggest month in the biggest year ever for hacking activity.” Just 13 days into the month, hackers have exploited 11 platforms with millions of dollars drained.
One of the highlights of the attacks this week was the exploit on Solana-based DeFi platform Mango Markets, losing over $100 million in a price manipulation attack. The protocol recorded the highest number of losses in the attacks.
Coinformania reported that the culprits “temporarily spiked up their collateral value and then took out massive loans from the Mango treasury,” which has around $70 million in USDT stablecoin.
Hackers also siphoned $2 million from TempleDAO and $1.8 million from the layer 1 blockchain QANplatform with another $200,000 drained from Rabby Wallet.
With the rate of hacks recorded in October, the blockchain analytics company noted that 2022 could become the biggest year of hacks on record, surpassing the gross loss recorded last year.
Cross-Chain Bridges Become a Favorite Landing for Hackers
Chainalysis also pointed out that hackers have stolen $600 million from cross-chain bridges this month, amounting to 82% of losses in October and 64% in 2022.
4/ Cross-chain bridges remain a major target for hackers, with 3 bridges breached this month and nearly $600 million stolen, accounting for 82% of losses this month and 64% of losses all year. pic.twitter.com/lQySX2ljKt
— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) October 12, 2022
The company further noted that cross-chain bridges remain a major target for hackers. The bridge serves as a gateway for transferring assets and information between blockchains.
Last week, BNB Chain, the blockchain that supports BEP2 and BEP20 smart contracts, suffered a cross-chain bridge exploit through its BSC Token Hub, allowing the hackers to steal two thousand BNB tokens from the pool.
In February, cross-chain bridge network Wormhole lost $318 million to hackers who exploited a vulnerability found on its Wormhole Token Bridge.
One month later, Axie Infinity Ronin Network lost 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million in USDC, worth around $625 million at the time.
