Cryptocurrency projects lost more than $ 600 million in cryptocurrencies in just 3 months

The total losses from hacker attacks on crypto services in the third quarter of 2023 amounted to $ 640 million. According to analysts, this is almost twice as much as in the previous quarter.

In the third quarter, the number of hacker attacks decreased significantly (25 major attacks per quarter versus 120 in the first half of the year), but the amount of stolen funds almost doubled ($ 640 million in the third quarter, $ 600 million in the first half of the year). Hacker activity increased in September, which can be attributed to the overall growth of business activity in the crypto market.

Decentralized services are the main target of hacker attacks, accounting for 62.9% of all attacks. In addition, hacking of payment services has significantly increased — 12.5%, and bridges have practically ceased to be the target of hacker attacks — 0.85%. The study also notes that attackers most often steal funds from Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain networks.

According to experts, the trend of hackers returning stolen funds has been ongoing since the beginning of the year: «Often, the affected crypto service posts a test transaction on its official social media page or sends hackers a test transaction offering to return the stolen funds in exchange for a small reward and the fact that the victims will not pass on information about the thief to law enforcement agencies.»

Hacker attacks that continue for a long time indicate the inability and unwillingness of crypto services to provide an adequate level of security, experts emphasized. Earlier, PeckShield estimated the value of cryptocurrencies stolen by hackers since the beginning of 2023 at more than $ 1.15 billion, with almost a third of these losses occurring in September — more than $ 355 million.