The total amount of money lost to hacker attacks has decreased three times compared to last year. There has been a significant drop in the total amount of funds stolen by hackers from cyberattacks over the past year. According to DefiLlama, there were 75 incidents in 2023 with a total loot of $1 billion. This figure is significantly lower than the previous year, when attackers managed to steal $3.2 billion from 60 attacks. The trend now is toward more frequent, albeit smaller, hacks.
Interestingly, only 11 out of 75 attacks this year have stolen more than $10 million, indicating that hackers prefer smaller but more frequent attacks. This approach, experts say, allows them to remain stealthy and avoid excessive media attention.
Eric Jardine of Chainalysis emphasizes that it is important to remember the unpredictability of hacker attacks. Even if the total volume of production decreases this year, there is a risk of the situation changing due to one or two major incidents.
Experts also note that the decrease in stolen funds is primarily due to market factors, rather than hackers abandoning cryptocurrencies. The volatility of crypto asset prices plays an important role here.
Nevertheless, the crypto market has already been repeatedly criticized due to various incidents. It allows criminals to launder money and even fund illegal programs. Cybersecurity experts warn that the increase in small crimes could be a precursor to larger attacks in the future.
Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at ESET, notes that cryptocurrency storage platforms, although they function like banks, do not guarantee a high level of protection. This is why they are becoming increasingly attractive to hackers.
According to Beosin, damage from hacks, phishing attacks and rag pools in Web3 approached $900 million in the last three months. That’s up from the first half of the year.
Immunefi also reports that the crypto market suffered $685 million in losses in the third quarter of 2023, a 59.9% increase from the same period last year. Despite the increase in total losses, the number of fraudsters has decreased, according to their data.
