The cryptocurrency industry is engaged in an “endless war” with hackers who continue to exploit the most vulnerable link—the human factor. This was stated by CertiK founder and Columbia University professor Junhui Gu in an interview with Cointelegraph.
— Zoltan Vardai (@ZVardai) August 22, 2025
According to analysts, losses in the first half of the year reached $2.47 billion, already 3% higher than the total for 2024. The largest incident was the attack on the Bybit exchange, resulting in $1.4 billion being stolen by criminals.
🚨 The Q2 + H1 2025 Hack3d Report is here.
$2.47B lost in the first half of the year.
$801M lost in Q2 alone.
Phishing and wallet compromise dominated the threat landscape.Dive into the data👇🧵 pic.twitter.com/Sxa6AGejGK
— CertiK (@CertiK) June 30, 2025
In the second quarter, losses from hacker activity decreased to $800 million, with specialists recording 144 attacks. However, forecasts remain pessimistic: Gu expects losses to remain in the billions in 2026.
“As long as there are weak spots or vulnerabilities, sooner or later they will be discovered by criminals. This is an endless war. But I fear that next year [losses from hacks] will still be measured in billions of dollars,” he said.
According to him, cybercriminals’ methods are evolving alongside security measures. Hackers are shifting to exploiting human behavior, Gu noted.
Last year, half of the incidents were related to operational vulnerabilities. Now, criminals are increasingly using social engineering. For instance, in August, a user lost $3 million by signing a fraudulent transaction. Another victim lost $900,000, 458 days after unknowingly approving a malicious contract.
Earlier, on August 21, on-chain sleuth ZachXBT reported that cybercriminals had swindled $91 million from a Bitcoin investor. The hackers posed as representatives of a crypto exchange and a hardware wallet support service.