PANews reported on August 12 that according to CoinDesk, a report from blockchain security company Halborn showed that although the amount of theft decreased in 2023, decentralized finance (DeFi) hacker attacks are still the main threat to the industry.
The report summarizes the 100 largest DeFi hacks from 2016 to 2023, with a cumulative total of $7.4 billion, with most attacks occurring on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and Polygon. While on-chain hacks (including smart contract exploits, price manipulation, and governance attacks) are the most common, off-chain attacks such as private key theft account for 29% of the total number of attacks and 34.6% of the stolen funds. In 2023, off-chain attacks accounted for 56.5% of the total number of attacks and 57.5% of the stolen funds.
The report added that only 21% of hacked protocols used multi-signature wallets. Most on-chain attacks occurred on unaudited protocols, and the lack of faulty input validation or confirmations was the main cause of losses in smart contract exploits. Cross-chain bridges remain the main attack vector for malicious actors.
