October Becomes the Biggest Month for Crypto Hacks

While there are still two weeks to go until the end of October, the month is turning out to be the most profitable for crypto criminals, blockchain analytics company Chainalysis said via Twitter on 13 October.

According to the new data, hacking activity in the crypto sector has been on the rise throughout this year, and October has become “the biggest month” for criminals in 2022. Chainalysis reported that in the first half of the month 11 different hacks on decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols were responsible for a total hacked value of $718 million, with four of those attacks taking place on 11 October.

The blockchain analytics company noted that so far the biggest year for crypto-based hacks was 2021 — with attackers gaining over $3.2 billion throughout the year — but that could soon change. With two and a half months left to go, and over $3 billion stolen across 125 hacks so far, Chainalysis says 2022 is very “likely” to surpass last year’s figures.

Chainalysis’ data also shows that hackers have been shifting their targets of attack over the years. Back in 2019, the majority were taking place on centralized crypto exchanges, but that started to change when those companies focused more on security the next year. Now the vast majority of attacks — around 90% — are targeting DeFi protocols and platforms.

The biggest focus, however, remains on cross-chain bridges, with attacks on them accounting for 82% of the losses this month, and 64% of the losses for the entire year. The largest attacks in October included the $100 million exploit of the bridge between BNB Smart Chain and Beacon Chain, and the $100 million exploit of DeFi platform Mango Markets.