Cyber criminals used a wide range of novel methods to hold out hacks and exploits in 2022, with over $2.8 billion of cryptocurrency stolen final yr.
In keeping with a report from CoinGecko utilizing information sourced from DeFiYield’s REKT Database, almost half of the whole crypto stolen in 2022 was fleeced utilizing numerous strategies. This contains bypassing verification processes, market manipulation, ‘crowd looting’ in addition to sensible contract and bridge exploits.
The most important hack of 2022 was carried out via an entry management hack. Sky Mavis, the developer behind fashionable sport Axie Infinity, noticed its Ronin bridge hacked in March 2022, resulting in $625 million being drained from the bridge between the Ronin chain and Ethereum community.
It was later revealed that North Korean hacking group Lazarus gained entry to 5 personal keys which have been used to signal transactions from 5 Ronon Community validator nodes. This was how the hackers drained 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC from the bridge.
In keeping with CoinGecko, entry management exploit is carried out by attackers which have gained entry to wallets or accounts via compromised personal keys, networks or safety techniques. As Cointelegraph explored final yr, cross-chain bridge hacks have been prevalent in 2022 with 65% of funds stolen from a majority of these assaults alone.
Associated: Crypto exploit losses in January see almost 93% year-on-year decline
The second largest exploit of 2022 came about in Feb. 2022, as attackers bypassed verification with a solid signature on the Wormhole token bridge earlier than minting $326 million price of crypto. Wormhole’s failure to validate ‘guardian’ accounts allowed hackers to mint tokens without having the required collateral.
‘Crowd looting’ got here to the fore in August 2022, as an insecure sensible contract configuration on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) token bridge Nomad allowed customers to withdraw a vast quantity of funds. Tons of of wallets took benefit of the exploit, seeing over $190 million drained.
Mango Markets suffered a market manipulation exploit in October 2022, as a hacker bought and artificially inflated Mango (MNGO) tokens earlier than taking out under-collateralized loans from the mission’s treasury. $116 million was stolen within the flash mortgage assault.
Reentrancy assaults, by which attackers make use of a malicious sensible contract that drains funds from a goal with repeated withdrawal orders, amounted to $81 million stolen final yr.
Oracle situation hacks led to $54 million of funds stolen. This methodology sees hackers achieve entry to an oracle service and manipulate its value feed information service to implement sensible contract failure or perform flash mortgage assaults.
Phishing assaults solely amounted to $17 million of cryptocurrency stolen in 2022. This methodology was prevalent between 2017 and 2020, as attackers preyed on unwitting victims via social engineering strategies to steal login credentials and personal keys.
An oracle assault in February 2023 is the most important hacking incident so far of the brand new yr. Hackers managed to control the value of the AllianceBlock token via an oracle hack, resulting in an estimated $120 million being stolen from the protocol.
