The digital asset trade witnessed many unprecedented occasions in 2022, making it one of many worst years in crypto historical past. Regardless of the challenges, cybercrime exercise considerably decreased in December in comparison with earlier months, like October, which noticed a surge in crypto hacks and thefts.
In line with blockchain safety agency CertiK, the trade suffered losses of roughly $62.2 million in December, making it the bottom month-to-month determine in 2022.
Cybercrime Exercise Decreases in December
Blockchain intelligence agency Chainalysis disclosed that the trade misplaced greater than $3 billion throughout 125 hacks from January to October 2022.
October was described as “Hacktober” as a result of variety of crypto hacks in the course of the interval. The month ended with 44 reported assaults, amounting to a lack of $657 million.
Nevertheless, crypto thefts slowed down in December, with just a few firms impacted. Whereas October had 11 exploits inside the first two weeks, resulting in greater than $500 million in losses, December solely noticed 11 assaults all through the month.
A number of the victims of crypto theft in December included the Helium Protocol, Defrost Finance, BitKeep, Ankr, Lodestar, and the Raydium Protocol, which misplaced roughly $15 million, $12.9 million, $8 million, $7 million, $6.5 million, and $5.5 million, respectively.
Combining all of the incidents in December we’ve confirmed ~$62.2M misplaced to exploits, hacks and scams.
The bottom month-to-month determine this yr.
Exit scams have been ~$15.5M
Flashloans have been ~$7.6M
See the small print beneath ? pic.twitter.com/1ub3mYVv6K
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) December 31, 2022
Flash Mortgage Assaults and Rug Pulls Quantity to $23M
Except for crypto hacks, the trade suffered losses of round $7.6 million resulting from flash mortgage assaults and $15.5 million in exit scams, often known as rug pulls.
Exit scams happen when software program builders create and launch a venture solely to desert it after attracting rich traders to the platform.
One instance of this rip-off is the alleged rug pull on the Defrost Finance platform on December 23. The DeFi protocol reportedly suffered a flash mortgage assault on its V2, resulting in the lack of tens of millions of {dollars} belonging to customers.
Whereas blockchain safety agency CertiK claimed that the assault was an exit rip-off after conducting investigations, cryptocurrency safety firm Peckshield additionally alleged that it was a rugpull, having obtained intel from the neighborhood earlier than the incident.
DeFi-focused safety firm DeFiYieldSec additionally alleged that an insider perpetrated the assault, claiming that the multi-sig pockets used to request an oracle change earlier than the assault belonged to the protocol’s creator.
Nevertheless, on December 29, Defrost Finance denied these allegations, calling them “slanderous and inaccurate.” The protocol stated it has recovered the funds and plans to redistribute the stolen property to affected customers.
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