Hacker Attacks Persist as a Major Threat to DeFi, Analysts Warn

Hacker attacks and breaches continue to pose a significant threat to the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, despite a reduction in the total damage in 2023. This conclusion was reached by analysts at Halborn, reports CoinDesk.

The report comprises the top 100 DeFi breaches from 2016 to 2023. Total losses amounted to $7.4 billion, with most attacks targeting projects on the Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Polygon blockchains.

According to the analysts, while on-chain exploits (such as asset price manipulation) are the most common, off-chain attacks like private key theft account for 29% of all incidents and 34.6% of the total stolen funds.

Halborn noted that only 21% of the compromised protocols used multi-signature wallets. Analysts highlighted that many of the attacked projects had not undergone audits.

Earlier, Cyvers co-founder and CEO Deddy Lavid identified centralized finance projects as the largest target for hackers in 2024. According to him, they account for about 70% of incidents in terms of lost funds and number of exploits.

Since the beginning of the year, 149 incidents have resulted in $1.19 billion in damages to the industry from hackers and fraudsters, according to Immunefi.

In July alone, cryptocurrency projects lost $278.8 million to malicious actors — the second-largest figure this year, as calculated by CertiK.