Crypto hackers set for a record year with over $3 billion loot, steal $718 million so far in October

A new report says that crypto hackers are set for a record year with a loot of over three billion dollars. Around $718 million has already been stolen so far in October and the gross tally for the year has now shot past three billion dollars, blockchain specialist Chainalysis Inc. reported. Decentralized finance, or DeFi protocols, have been the main targets.

“October is now the biggest month” for hacking activity in 2022, Chainalysis said Thursday on Twitter.

The protocols deploy software-based algorithms to enable crypto investors to trade, borrow and lend minus the presence of a central intermediary. Hackers have been able to successfully exploit the coding, security and structure of DeFi marketplaces. 

One such hack was where a hacker looted about $100 million from DeFi service Mango by manipulating the price of its token, wiping out depositors on the platform in the process. Another one was reported last week when a hacker minted and took away two million Binance Coins, nearly $570 million in worth. Binance later said that about $100 million wasn’t recovered, while the rest was frozen. 

Chainalysis had earlier estimated that North Korea-affiliated groups have stolen approximately one billion dollars of crypto from DeFi protocols.