2022 was certainly a difficult yr for the crypto business, marked by vital declines within the worth of main belongings, liquidity points for a lot of companies, and an unlucky variety of chapter filings. The business additionally confronted substantial safety threats as hackers stole billions of {dollars} from customers and DeFi protocols.
A report by blockchain safety agency SlowMist, titled “Blockchain Safety and AML Evaluation,” offered an outline of the safety standing of assorted sectors throughout the crypto business, analyzing the movement of stolen funds in additional than 300 hacks that occurred in 2022.
Hackers Stole Over $3.7B in 2022
In accordance with the doc, 303 blockchain-related safety incidents occurred final yr, leading to losses of an estimated $3.7 billion (calculated on the market value on the time of the exploit).
The quantity misplaced represents a 61% drop from the $9.795 billion misplaced in 2021, though SlowMist didn’t take into account the worth misplaced on account of market volatility.
The report revealed that about 255 safety incidents affected numerous ecosystems, together with DeFi, cross-chain bridges, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Moreover, there have been ten safety incidents involving crypto exchanges, 11 attacking public chains, six exploiting wallets, and 21 of different sorts.
The DeFi ecosystem lost $2.075 billion to hackers, roughly 55% of the entire losses for the yr, whereas cross-chain bridges recorded $1.212 billion of stolen funds, about 32% of the whole quantity in the course of the yr.
Per the paper, there have been 56 safety incidents reported within the NFT house, leading to losses totaling over $65.44 million.
“Many of those incidents had been attributable to phishing assaults, accounting for about 39% (22 incidents), adopted by Rug Pulls, accounting for about 21% (12 incidents). The remaining 30% (17 incidents) had been attributable to contract vulnerabilities or different inside elements,” the report acknowledged.
BNB Chain – The Greatest Hack Sufferer in 2022
The report exhibits that BNB Chain (previously referred to as Binance Sensible Chain – BSC) was the largest sufferer of blockchain safety incidents final yr. The blockchain skilled 79 assaults, leading to losses of as much as $785 million.
The analysis discovered that blockchain mixers gained reputation final yr, with them being the favourite device for hackers to launder their ill-gotten proceeds. Per the report, 1,233,129 ETH (approx. $2.83 billion) was deposited to the now-sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash, whereas 40,065 BTC was deposited to ChipMixer in 2022.
The report additionally revealed that some business initiatives have began implementing efficient measures for blockchain anti-money laundering to stop attackers from taking advantage of their crimes.
Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle blocked 376 addresses in 2022 to stop funds within the wallets from being moved out by attackers.
In the meantime, whereas crypto theft exceeded $3.7 billion in 2022, one other report revealed that illicit crypto transactions reached a file excessive of $20 billion throughout the identical interval.
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