- Cryptocurrency losses to hacking decreased by 23.1% year-over-year to $336.3 million in Q1 2024, with DeFi most vulnerable.
- Ethereum and BNB Chain were primary targets, accounting for over 73% of thefts.
- Hacking dominated theft methods, contributing to 95.6% of losses.
During the initial quarter of the year, the cryptocurrency sector experienced a loss of $336.3 million due to hacking, marking a 23.1% decrease compared to the previous year.
The Immunefi report highlighted that, within the first quarter of 2024, over $321 million was lost by crypto initiatives through 46 hacking events and 15 instances of fraud.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) remains the most vulnerable to cyber-attacks, representing all the losses in the cryptocurrency field. Mitchell Amador, the CEO of Immunefi, pointed out that DeFi is particularly susceptible to the frequent theft of private keys.
“Particularly, the ecosystem has witnessed a significant volume of losses due to private key compromises, emphasizing the critical need to secure both code and protocol infrastructure.”
Mitchell Amador, Founder and CEO at Immunefi
In the first quarter of 2024, there was a 17.5% reduction in the number of hacking incidents affecting the cryptocurrency industry when compared to the same timeframe in 2023. The Ethereum (ETH) network was particularly targeted, suffering 33 attacks, while the BNB Chain (BNB) was the second most compromised network, experiencing 14 breaches. Combined, Ethereum and BNB Chain were the source of more than 73% of the total funds lost to hacking.
The most significant breaches occurred on the Orbit Bridge and the Munchables web3 gaming platform, with over $81 million taken from Orbit and nearly $63 million from Munchables. Following these were PlayDapp and FixedFloat, with losses of $32 million and $26 million, respectively.
Hacking has been identified as the predominant method of cryptocurrency theft, responsible for 95.6% of all lost assets, whereas fraud contributed to a mere 4.4%. Analysts have noted a 22.4% decrease in fraud incidents over the last year.
In 2023, cybercriminals extracted $19 million from cryptocurrency ventures, a figure that has seen a reduction to $14 million this year. Remarkably, only 22% of the purloined assets, amounting to $73 million, have been recovered this year.
An interesting observation is that the centralized finance (CeFi) sector reported no losses in the first quarter of 2024, a stark contrast to the $1.8 million lost during the same period in the previous year.
