Crypto Hacks Increase In July 2024, PeckShield Reports $266 Million Losses

Crypto-related hackers continue to plague the ecosystem. In July 2024, PeckShield reported a significant increase in these security breaches.

The blockchain research firm found that 16 incidents resulted in approximately $266 million in losses during the period.

The most serious breach was the Indian centralized crypto exchange WazirX, which suffered a staggering loss of $230 million. Experts attributed the attack to the notorious North Korean-backed Lazarus Group, which began laundering the stolen funds using crypto-mixing services such as Tornado Cash.

In response, WazirX halted operations and offered a $23 million reward to encourage the attackers to return the stolen assets. The exchange also suggested a “socialized loss strategy” to distribute the financial impact fairly among all users.

Closely following WazirX’s losses was the popular algorithmic protocol Compound which faced a potential government attack worth $24 million. Meanwhile, bridge protocol LI.FI and decentralized AI protocol Bittensor were allocated $9.73 million and $8 million, respectively.

Next up were liquidity provider RhoMarkets and decentralized lending platform DeltaPrime, which experienced defaults of $7.6 million and $1 million respectively, but both managed to recover a substantial portion of their funds. Other affected platforms included Terra with $4 million, DoughFina with $1.86 million, Minterest with $1.4 million, and MonoSwap with $1.3 million.

It is important to note that most hackers transferred their loot to Tornado Cash to hide their tracks. In addition, June saw fewer losses, with a total of $176 million in 20 separate cases.

In addition to exploits, exit scams accounted for nearly $3 million in losses last month, according to another major blockchain security firm, CertiK.

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