Crypto hacking losses drop in Q1 2024

Immunefi research report for the Q1 of 2024 reveals a 23% decrease in losses from crypto hacking and scams in the crypto market.

The blockchain security company Immunefi published a research report on March 28 that shows a 23% decrease in losses from crypto hacking and scams in the cryptocurrency market in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in the previous year.

Crypto Hacking Loss Decline

According to the report, crypto hacking and fraud occurrences lost an overall amount of money of around $336.3 million in the Q1 of 2024. This figure represents a decrease from the $437.5 million lost during the same quarter in 2023.

The study identifies 46 instances of crypto hacking and 15 cases of fraudulent activity. As a result of the almost $1 billion worth of total wealth locked up in Web3 protocols, decentralized finance (DeFi) systems continue to be a big target for hackers.

Immunefi found all the exploits discovered in the first quarter, whereas centralized finance platforms had zero exploits. Two projects were responsible for the majority of the losses, which amounted to a total of $144.5 million, which is 33 percent of the entire amount.

At midnight on New Year’s Eve, the cross-chain bridge protocol Orbit Bridge was the victim of the most significant attack, which totaled $81.7 million. January recorded the most significant monthly losses in the first quarter, totaling $133 million.

In his presentation, Immunefi’s Chief Executive Officer, Mitchell Amador, brought attention to the fact that DeFi platforms are vulnerable to breaches of private keys.

This highlights the urgent requirement for increased security measures across the code and protocol architectures. Munchables, a nonfungible token game based on Blast, was the target of the second-largest attack, which involved an exploit worth $62 million.

However, the hacker transferred the secret keys to the wallet containing Munchables’ assets over the course of twenty-four hours, enabling the recovery of the money.

During the first quarter, seven different operations recovered a total of $73.9 million, or 22 percent, of the stolen cash. From 74 in the first quarter of 2023 to 61 in the middle of 2024, the number of attacks dropped by 17.6%.

Hacking was responsible for 95.6% ($321.6 million) of damages in 46 events, whereas fraud, scams, and rug pulls were responsible for 4.4% ($14.7 million) of losses in 15 incidents.

Between the two networks, Ethereum was the most targeted chain, followed by the BNB chain. Together, the two networks were responsible for 73% of the overall damages.

Ethereum was the target of the most significant number of attacks, with 33 events accounting for 51% of the total losses. The BNB Chain fell victim to twelve attacks, resulting in the theft of 22% of the cash.

Several other issues were discovered on the following platforms: Base, Arbitrum, Solana, Optimism, Bitcoin, Blast, Polygon, and Conflux Network.