Cryptocurrency Industry Faces $244 Million Loss from May Hacks

The cumulative losses for crypto projects from 20 recorded hacks in May amounted to $244.1 million. This figure is nearly 40% lower than the previous month, noted PeckShield.

The largest incident was an attack on the pools of the decentralized exchange Cetus on the Sui network, with a potential loss of $223 million. However, blockchain validators froze assets worth $163 million on two hacker addresses.

The Sui community approved an emergency protocol update to recover funds for user compensation. The DEX team offered the attacker $6 million for the return of 20,920 ETH, which had been withdrawn.

Experts from Dedaub explained the Cetus hack as a vulnerability in the liquidity parameter checks of the automated market maker.

On May 28, an unknown individual attacked the DeFi protocol Cork Protocol and stole $12 million in cryptocurrency.

The third-largest loss for the month was the hacking of an individual investor for $5.2 million, allegedly by hackers linked to North Korea.

Earlier in the first quarter, cybercriminals stole $1.64 billion in 40 incidents.

The majority of this sum was due to the February hack of the centralized exchange Bybit, amounting to $1.46 billion. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed the involvement of the North Korean group Lazarus Group in the attack.