Hackers swindle $30 bn in cryptocurrency
Exchange losses were the most severe, totalling more than $10 billion
Representational image.
San Francisco More than $30 billion in cryptocurrency has been hacked in 1,102 documented incidents from 2012 to the present, a new report has shown.
According to the blockchain security firm SlowMist, contract vulnerabilities, rug pulls, flash loan attacks, scams, and private key leaks are the top five most common hacks. The total number of incidents comprised 118 exchange hacks, 217 Ethereum ecosystem hacks, 162 BNB Smart Chain ecosystem hacks, 119 EOS ecosystem hacks, and 85 nonfungible token hacks or NFTs.
Exchange losses were the most severe, totalling more than $10 billion over the last decade.
Hacking events involving over $1 billion in losses peaked in the early 2010s and again from 2019 to 2021.
Security incidents have become somewhat less frequent since 2022, the report mentioned.
Meanwhile, a hacking group called 'Pink Drainer' has been impersonating journalists in phishing attacks in order to compromise Discord and Twitter accounts and steal cryptocurrency.
According to anti-scam platform ScamSniffer analysts, Pink Drainer was able to compromise the accounts of 1,932 victims and steal about $3 million in digital assets on the Mainnet, Arbitrum, BNB, Polygon, Optimism, and other blockchains.
The threat actor was captured by ScamSniffer's on-chain monitoring bots after stealing $3,27,000 in NFTs from a single person.
