Cryptocurrency experts name the biggest hacker attacks of 2022

According to a Chainalysis report, the frequency of cryptocurrency hacks increased in 2022, reaching a record $ 3 billion in stolen funds — an increase of $ 1 billion compared to 2021. Among the largest crypto thefts, analysts identified incidents related to inter-chain bridges and decentralized financial protocols, whose exploits caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. Here are 5 major attacks on the market this year:

Ronin Network — $ 625 million stolen
A hacker attack by the North Korean group Lazarus Group on the Ronin sidechain used by the Axie Infinity game was carried out back in March. Back then, the attackers used an exploit that affected Sky Mavis validator nodes. The company suffered losses of 173,600 ETH and $ 25.5 million — 1/3 of the stolen assets belonged to the company, but more than 100,000 ETH were gaming assets.

As the researchers found out, the attackers sent job offers to the developers of the Axie Infinity blockchain game via LinkedIn. The hacker plan was implemented thanks to one of the employees who was interested in the job offer (apparently from a fake company). The developer went through several stages of an online interview, after which he received a «job offer» letter in the form of a PDF document — it contained the software that allowed the hackers to take control of 4 out of 9 validators.

FTX — $ 400 million stolen
The leak occurred on the same day that Сем Бенкман-Фрід" href="https://noworries.media/biography/sem-benkman-frid/" data-bio-id="3697">Sam Bankman-Fried announced the exchange’s bankruptcy. Blockchain experts even found evidence that the hacker was an FTX insider. The simultaneous hacking of the FTX and FTX US websites, access to several cold wallets, and the use of a single account led to speculation that the ex-CEO could have done it. However, Bankman-Fried is confident that this is a fake attack by cybercriminals — in his opinion, the funds were stolen by FTX employees themselves.

Nomad Bridge — $ 190 million stolen
In early August, cryptocurrency hackers hacked the Nomad Bridge token exchange and stole $ 190,000,000 (almost all of the project’s liquidity), leaving only $ 651. The Nomad Bridge exploit was different from many similar cyberattacks: funds were sent across the bridge to hundreds of cryptocurrency wallets.

In exchange for the stolen funds, the management of the cryptocurrency startup Nomad offered the hackers a reward in the form of NFTs — 100 non-fungible tokens worth $ 27 each. Given the scale of the theft, the reward of $ 2,700 in NFTs did not interest the attackers at the time.

Mango Markets — $ 115 million stolen
The Mango Markets exploit was carried out as a result of manipulating the price of the native token MNGO. The increase in the value of the collateral in MNGO allowed Abraham Eisenberg to take a loan and withdraw funds from the protocol. The fraudster used a scheme called the «oracle attack,» in which manipulations with the price of the MNGO platform’s native token allowed him to steal about $ 115 million worth of cryptocurrency. However, the hacker later agreed with Mango representatives to return $ 67 million. Eisenberg kept the rest of the money for himself. on December 28, the hacker was arrested in Puerto Rico.

BNB Token Hub — $ 120 million stolen
In October, hackers hacked the blockchain associated with the world’s largest exchange Binance. The attackers managed to take control of 2 million BNB tokens blocked on the bridge and valued at $ 566 million at the time. The exploit targeted the BNB Token Hub interconnection bridge. The fraudsters created tokens that were not backed by anything, using fictitious mechanisms to prove the withdrawal of funds.

However, the hackers managed to misappropriate only $ 120 million. As Binance CEO Чанпен Чжао" href="https://noworries.media/biography/chanpen-chzhao/" data-bio-id="3681">Changpeng Zhao said at the time, BNB validators quickly deactivated the network, freezing up to 80% of the stolen assets.