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Crypto attacks in April exceeded $100 million, adding to the already substantial sum stolen in 2023. Unsurprisingly, DeFi was the main target last month.
CertiK reports that crypto attacks in April topped $100 million. The blockchain security company noted that about $103.6 million was stolen due to exploits, hacks, and scams.
Crypto Attacks Not Slowing
Flash loans were one of the most common methods of attack, resulting in $19.9 million stolen. These attacks are common and continue to serve as a pain point for the DeFi space. Exit scams drained victims of $9.4 million, a smaller but still significant sum of money. However, exploits resulted in the most losses, with $74.5 million stolen in this manner.
The single largest attack was that of MEV Bots, which suffered $25.3 million in losses due to an exploit. Bitrue and GDAC followed with $22 million and $13 million, also because of exploits.
With respect to exit scams, Merlin DEX was the largest culprit, siphoning $2.7 million in funds. Ordinals Finance came second with $1 million stolen.
The biggest flash loan attacks took place on Yearn Finance, with $10.1 million stolen, and Hundred Finance, which saw $7.4 million stolen.
These attacks indicate that the DeFi market still has a lot of work to do to protect investors. 2023 looks like it could match 2022 in terms of losses, which is something that teams will want to desperately avoid as the market grows bigger.
Euler Finance Hack and Others Have Investors Wary
Several major attacks have already occurred in 2023, with tens of millions of dollars stolen each month. While rug pulls still occur, many attacks that have occurred in 2023 are due to exploits of protocol logic.
Euler Finance was one of the most notable attacks, with hackers stealing $197 million in March. The team did manage to recover the funds after negotiating with the attacks. Another major attack was that of Sentiment Finance, with the platform losing close to $1 million due to a reentrancy attack. Here too, the team negotiated with the hacker, with the latter returning 90% of the funds.
2023’s Crypto Attack Downtrend
So far, 2023 might seem like a better year than 2022 because the year has seen less theft than the one before. In February 2022, hackers stole $359 million. This year, during the same month, the figure was $20 million.
However, that is only because hackers conducted large attacks on a single platform, which greatly added to the total stolen. DeFi hacks in 2022 were daring even by the crypto market’s standards, leading to the FBI offering safety tips.