As 2024 comes to a close, cybersecurity firm Cyvers reveals the extent of cyber attacks on the crypto industry in their Security, Fraud, and Compliance Report. The report highlights the staggering $2.361 billion lost due to cyber threats across 165 incidents – a 40% increase from the previous year’s losses of $1.69 billion.
Intriguingly, access control incidents accounted for 81% of losses despite making up only 41.6% of all occurrences. These attacks resulted in the theft of approximately $1.9 billion across 67 incidents, while code vulnerabilities caused around $456.3 million in losses across 98 incidents. Address poisoning scams were relatively rare, with just one incident leading to a $68.7 million loss.
Though fraud trends experienced a 40% jump year-on-year, they remained 37% lower than the record high of $3.78 billion witnessed in 2022. In 2024, the Ethereum network bore the brunt of the attacks, suffering over $1.2 billion in losses.
Analyzing quarterly data, Cyvers discovered that smart contract vulnerabilities dominated in Q1 2024. The third quarter saw the highest losses, amounting to $790 million, whereas Q4 registered the lowest activity and losses with a 56% decrease compared to the same period in 2023. Interestingly, Q3 was also the dominant quarter in both 2023 and 2024.
Noteworthy theft incidents included the $305 million heist against Japanese exchange DMM Bitcoin and the $235 million hack against India’s WazirX platform. DeFi project Radiant Capital lost $50 million after falling prey to cyberattacks, while Singapore’s BingX exchange suffered a $52 million loss. However, there was some consolation as more than $1.3 billion was returned to affected parties, partly thanks to bug bounty programs.
Looking ahead to next year, potential new threats may emerge such as quantum and AI attacks as technology advances further. Additionally, CeFi platforms might face increased targeting due to their heightened risk levels. Pig butchering scams have become another significant concern, resulting in $3.6 billion in stolen funds distributed across over 150,000 addresses and 800,000 transactions in 2024 alone.
Source
Source: cryptopotato.com
