A recent report from Immunefi reveals that hackers have significantly increased their targeting of cryptocurrency projects in the past year, with a particular focus on decentralized finance (DeFi). According to the bug bounty platform’s findings, overall hacks across blockchains rose by 63% in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year. While total losses decreased by 60% from the previous year, the number of hacks increased by 65%, and fraud-related losses surged by 225%.
The majority of these attacks targeted DeFi platforms, resulting in $228 million in losses across 79 separate incidents during Q2. In contrast, centralized platforms lost $37 million across only two incidents during the same period. Immunefi highlights two significant incidents as major contributors to the losses: the June 3 hack of Atomic Wallet, which allegedly led to the loss of $100 million in crypto, and the May 23 exit scam executed by the now-defunct Fintoch platform, which disappeared with nearly $32 million in user funds.
Immunefi also identifies specific blockchain networks that were heavily targeted, with Binance Smart Chain (BNB) and Ethereum accounting for 77% of the total losses in the last quarter, followed by Arbitrum at 12%. The report notes the noteworthy increase in attacks on Arbitrum, as it had no reported incidents during the same period the previous year.
Neither Arbitrum nor Binance provided comments in response to Decrypt’s requests for further information on the matter.
