In the past year, a blockchain analytics firm that tracks cybercrime detected a record $3.8 billion worth of cryptocurrency stolen by hackers extensively, primarily from North Korea.
As per a report published last week by researchers at Chainalysis, 2022 will be seen as one of the biggest years ever in terms of cryptocurrency hacking. The company reported a $2 billion increase in thefts from the $3.3 billion stated in 2021, according to its report. A confidential United Nations report published on Monday revealed that North Korea had stolen more digital assets in 2016 than it had in any previous year.
There was a period when U.S. investors poured millions of dollars into Bitcoin, Ether, and Dogecoin. As a result, they were hoping that the Coronavirus pandemic would result in a fortune. It should be noted, however, that some investors on platforms with poor cybersecurity instead lost their digital wallets by being victimized by hackers, which made their investments worthless.
Cybercriminals in North Korea stole $1.7 billion in cryptocurrency in 2022, shattering their yearly record for the highest number of cryptocurrencies stolen in a given year. This is according to a Chainalysis report published earlier this month.
North Korea's total exports in 2020 were $142 million. Therefore, it's fair to assume that cryptocurrency hacking is a significant economic component of the country. This is because it represents a notable portion of the economy, the researchers commented.
Crypto industry regulators have renewed their calls for regulation by calling for more regulation in the wake of more investors losing money in crypto. After FTX Trading, the third largest crypto platform collapsed and declared bankruptcy in November, scrutiny of the industry increased even more due to this unexpected failure.
As Cryptocurrency Hacking trends tend to ebb and flow, Chainalysis estimates the number of crypto hacks will peak between March and October of 2022. During October, there were 32 attacks totaling $775.7 million due to cryptocurrency hacks. According to the report, this is the biggest single month for cryptocurrency hacking ever.
As a result of hackers' activities, decentralized finance platforms, or DeFis, were targeted for 82% of all stolen funds across the world last year, Chainalysis reported. Usually, criminals operate in the crypto space when investors and operators are actively transferring funds from a single blockchain to another through a so-called cross-chain bridge.
A cross-chain bridge owned by Binance was hacked in October, and $586 million in crypto was stolen from it. This was the biggest hack of October in terms of crypto theft. There have been some security issues at the company that led to the hack, but they managed to minimize the damage.
According to David Schwed, the chief operating officer of Halborn, a blockchain security firm based in New York, some crypto companies do not prioritize security over other aspects of their business, allowing bad actors to exploit DeFi platforms.
As Schwed stated in Chainalysis' report, for a complicated protocol to be secure, the security team should consist of 10 to 15 people. Each person should have their area of expertise. There is no clear demand for better security among the DeFi community - they often want to switch over to protocols that offer high returns but the incentives are liable to lead to problems down the road.
