Over $1.1bn (£860m) worth of cryptocurrency was lost from Web3 cybersecurity cases so far in 2024, according to data from Certik, a blockchain monitoring company.
This represents a massive increase from H1 figures in 2023, which saw $640.2m in losses. H1 2024 losses are already fast approaching the total losses seen across 2023, which was $1.84bn (£1.44bn).
While there was an 18% decrease in the number of incidents from Q1 2024 to Q2, the value of the losses increased by 37%. This could be explained by crypto’s fluctuating price, however.
Across 408 onchain security incidents over the first six months of 2024, victims lost an average of $2.9m (£2.27m) per incident, but the median loss to victims was $230,784 (£180,662)
According to the research, the most common threat vector was phishing, which made up 150 of the incidents, resulting in $497.7m in losses.
Beyond phishing, private key compromises left devastating financial impacts despite being relatively fewer in number. With 42 incidents, these attacks resulted in a loss of $408.9m (£320.10m).
Besides this, code vulnerabilities amassed $80m (£62m) in losses from 105 incidents, and exit scams raised $79m in losses from 55 incidents.
Price manipulation, with 25 incidents, resulted in $38.5m (£30m) in losses, and access control’s 20 cases resulted in $86m losses.
The research revealed that Ethereum was the most targeted blockchain so far in 2024, with 222 incidents, totally $315m (£246m) in resulting losses.
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Bitcoin, on the other hand, was only hit by one incident during this period, but the results were massive, resulting in $304m (£298m) in losses.
Blast, another crypto blockchain, suffered seven incidents with $70.7m (£55m) in losses, while Arbitrum lost $31m (£24m) across 28 incidents.
What could be contributing to this rise in crypto scam losses? Decentralised finance (DeFi) platforms are already effective targets for threat actors, and Certik suggested that the easing of crypto trading restrictions in Hong Kong, Dubai, and other markets are opening up more avenues for DeFi platforms, as well as cyber-criminals targetting them.