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Good news: August saw a significant decrease in cryptocurrency losses due to hacks and fraud, according to a recent report from Immunefi. Total losses amounted to $15,082,000 across five incidents, marking the lowest monthly total year-to-date and a 94.5% decrease from July.
As Decrypt reported at the time, July saw cross-chain DeFi protocol Li.Fi losing about $11 million to a hack. Reports indicate that hackers stole more than twice as much cryptocurrency in the first half of 2024—based on the U.S. dollar value of the coins—compared to the first six months of 2023.
The two largest incidents this month involved the Ronin Network, a gaming-focused blockchain, which lost $12 million, and Nexera, a DeFi protocol, which incurred a loss of $1.5 million. Notably, the $12 million stolen from Ronin Network was later recovered after white hat hackers who discovered and exploited the vulnerability returned the funds.
Despite the lower losses in August, the year-to-date total for 2024 stands at $1,210,741,330 lost to hacks and rug pulls across 154 incidents, a 15.5% increase from the same period in 2023.
"Most of the losses in 2024 are attributed to attacks targeting CeFi infrastructure,” Gonçalo Magalhães, Head of Security at Immunefi told Decrypt. “We've known for a while that infrastructure compromises tend to be the most devastating hacks in the cryptocurrency world.”
All reported hacks in August occurred in the DeFi sector, with no CeFi losses recorded.
"In DeFi, most losses are due to vulnerabilities in smart contracts, whereas in CeFi, attacks typically target the exchange infrastructure and focus on exploiting private keys," Magalhães said.
Ethereum and BNB Chain were the only chains targeted for hacks in August.
"Ethereum and BNB Chain are consistently the most targeted chains due to the high value of funds locked within them," he added. "Bad actors specifically target these chains because the potential payoff from a successful exploit is greater."
Edited by Stacy Elliott.