Crypto heists elevated in quantity by 42% in 2023, with 283 incidents, in keeping with an evaluation by client consciousness agency Comparitech.
This compares to 199 crypto theft incidents in 2022. However, the overall financial worth stolen in 2023 fell by 51% in 2022, from $3.55bn to $1.75bn.
Worryingly, $16.93m of crypto has already been stolen in 2024 as of January 15. This is double the $8.37m stolen all through January 2023.
The Comparitech analysis additionally discovered that the variety of rug pulls and scams carried out in 2023 declined by 25% in comparison with 2022, from 365 to 273. The worth of cryptocurrency misplaced in these scams additionally fell by half in the identical interval, from $1.2bn. in 2022 to $656m in 2023.
Rug pulls are incidents the place the founders of recent crypto tokens or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) pull out earlier than the mission is absolutely constructed. Exit scams from longer operating and extra established tasks. Scams cowl incidents like Ponzi schemes, honeypots and impersonations of different cash.
One issue that will clarify the numerous discount in stolen crypto cash is the autumn within the worth of decentralized finance (DeFi) final 12 months.
Crypto Heists and Scam Trends
The three largest crypto heists and rug pulls/scams in 2023 had been the next:
- Mixin Network – $200m: This adopted a compromise of Mixin’s cloud service supplier database in September 2023.
- Euler Finance – $197m: Threat actors stole the funds from Euler’s DeFi lending protocol after exploiting a vulnerability in its code in March 2023.
- JPEX – $192m: This theft occurred following a crypto rip-off involving an unlicensed platform in Hong Kong.
The researchers famous that assaults on DeFi platforms made up 51% of crypto heists final 12 months. This was adopted by hacks on particular person cryptocurrencies (30%).
Overall, a complete of $27bn has been misplaced in crypto heists, rug pulls and scams to this point throughout all years.
Rebecca Moody, Head of Data Research at Comparitech, famous that a few of the largest crypto thefts have occurred through personal key compromises.
“This highlights the continued vulnerabilities of crypto platforms and the way some platforms that publicize themselves as being ‘decentralized’ do in actual fact have a centralized storage system for personal keys,” she stated.
Separate analysis printed by Comparitech on January 15 discovered that ransomware assaults on US authorities organizations price over $860m in downtime, with probably greater than 250 million individuals impacted in the course of the interval January 2018 to December 2023.