Since the beginning of 2024, the crypto industry has suffered losses exceeding $1.2 billion due to hacks and fraud across 154 incidents. This figure surpasses last year’s eight-month total by 15.5%, according to experts at Immunefi.
They noted that this increase occurred despite a 95% reduction in losses in August, amounting to only $15.1 million compared to $274.7 million in July.
Contrary to the trend identified by Chainalysis analysts, which suggested a shift in focus by attackers towards centralized exchanges, all five incidents in the month were related to DeFi.
The largest incident involved the unauthorized withdrawal of $12 million in assets from the Ronin Network sidechain. Within hours, the hacker returned the funds for a reward of $500,000.
In August, the losses faced by crypto projects were solely due to hacks.
Across blockchains, three cyberattacks occurred within the Ethereum ecosystem, while two took place in the BNB Chain.
Earlier findings by Immunefi revealed that the native tokens of 77% of protocols affected by hacks have yet to recover their valuations. Experts identified this as the primary damage from exploits.