Crypto Hackers Clean Up in October, Adding to $3B Haul 

Crypto hackers busted through the gates of 2022 mounting up record hauls of swiped assets, already closing in on last year’s tally.

So far this month, fraudsters stole an estimated minimum of $718 million, pushing the total for 2022 over $3 billion across 125 hacks; that’s on course for a record annual tally topping last year’s total value hacked, Chainalysis tweeted on Thursday (Oct. 13). 

“After four hacks yesterday, October is now the biggest month in the biggest year ever for hacking activity, with more than half the month still to go. So far this month, $718 million has been stolen from #DeFi protocols across 11 different hacks,” Chainalysis said on Twitter.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms are the targets of the majority of the attacks. Enabling investors to trade across ledgers without a central intermediary, bridge attacks this month accounted for 82 percent of all losses in October, and 64 percent in 2022, Chainalysis calculated.

See also: Crypto Whale Pilfers $100M From Solana DeFi Platform Mango 

About $100 million was stolen from DeFi service Mango by manipulating the price of its token using two accounts funded with the stablecoin USD Coin on the DeFi platform Solana, PYMNTS reported on Wednesday (Oct. 12). The DeFi protocol Binance Smart Chain was attacked over the weekend of Oct. 8, with hackers making off with an estimated $100 million.

Read more: Want to Stop Crypto Hacks? Make Them Reversible

Hacker groups associated with North Korea are said to be behind about $1 billion in assets swiped from DeFi protocols, Chainalysis estimated earlier this year.

Hackers have become adept at exploiting weaknesses in the security, coding and structure of DeFi marketplaces. That’s putting the onus on crypto players to find solutions, given that DeFi is touted as important for crypto adoption.