In August 2023, as a result of hacker attacks, scammers stole $23.3 million. This is evidenced by data from the Immunefi report.
This is almost 14 times less than in July, when attackers stole $320 million in cryptocurrency. According to the report, all attacks were carried out on decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Neither incident affected centralized exchanges.
In addition, from January to August of this year, analysts recorded 211 cases of hacking and rug pull, as a result of which Web3 projects lost $1.24 billion.
Hacking and fraud
In August 2023, hacks were still the leading cause of losses compared to online fraud and scams. Fraud accounts for 32.3% of total losses in August 2023, while hacking accounts for 67.7%.
Analysts estimate that in the last month of summer, losses from hacking amounted to $15.8 million, while losses from fraud accounted for $7.5 million. In total, thirteen hacker attacks and four cases of fraud were recorded.
DeFi is a prime target for hackers
The decentralized finance sector continues to be a major target for hackers. In the last month of summer, 17 cryptocurrency thefts were recorded there, while CeFi had none. Centralized exchanges managed to avoid exploits during this period.
The Ethereum network is the leader in the frequency of hacking
In August, five hacking incidents were recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. There have been four attacks on the BNB network. It is noteworthy that the Base blockchain was launched on August 9, but it was also the victim of four hacks. These three networks accounted for 62% of all network losses in August.
Two more incidents occurred on the Optimism network, accounting for 9.5% of the total losses. Arbitrum, Solana, Avalanche, Fantom and Linea experienced one incident for a combined rate of 28.7%.
Immunefi analysts also named the largest payments in history for discovered vulnerabilities. Thus, the developers received $10 million for the identified bug in the Wormhole protocol. In addition, the company paid $6 and $2.2 million for vulnerabilities found in the Aurora bridge for Ethereum and the Polygon network.
Previously, PeckShieldAlert analysts estimated cryptocurrency thefts in August at more than $17 million.
