Hackers stole about $471 million in the first six months of 2023 and the theft of $197 million from Euler Finance in March was the single biggest hacking incident in the period, the latest Beosin Web3 report has shown. Contract vulnerability was the most common (60) type of attack during the period with losses of $264.1 million. The data indicates that most of the rug-pulling incidents occurred on the BNB Chain (80) and digital assets worth $53.4 million were lost in the period under review.
Web3 Industry Lost $656 Million in H1
In the first half of 2023, the Web3 industry lost as much as $656 million to hackers, phishing scams and the so-called rug pulls, the latest Beosin Web3 security report has said. As shown in the report, hackings alone accounted for approximately $471 million, nearly 72% of the total losses. Phishing scams accounted for almost 17% of the total losses ($108.3 million) while rug pulls, which rocked decentralized finance in 2021, accounted for the remaining $75.87 million.
The $197 million hack on Euler Finance, which was blamed on North Korea-backed cybercriminals, is the biggest in 2023 so far. On June 3, Bitcoin.com News reported an attack on Atomic Wallet and at the time it was believed that hackers had siphoned as much as $35 million. However, according to the Web3 report, the total funds lost in the Atomic Wallet hacking is in fact $67 million which makes this the second largest so far. In the rest of the top 8 hacking in the H1 of 2023, cybercriminals are believed to have made off with $25 million or less, the report data shows.
Most Rug Pulls Occur on the BNB Chain
When compared to the hacking losses in prior H1s, the report data shows that cybercriminals stole more in the first six months of 2022, about $1.9 billion. In 2021, hackers stole less, around $375.5 million.
The report data also shows that a total of 85 decentralized finance (defi) projects account for the biggest portion of the losses — $292.6 million. Contract vulnerability was the most common (60) type of attack during the period with losses of $264.1 million. Arbitrage attacks, private key compromises, and misconfiguration were the other common tactics used by criminals.
Meanwhile, the data indicates that most of the rug-pulling incidents occurred on the BNB Chain (80) and digital assets worth $53.4 million were lost in the period under review. The Ethereum blockchain had the next highest number of rug-pulls while the Dogecoin chain only had one such incident. According to the data, Fontech, which lost in excess of $30 million, was the top rug-pulled project in the first six months of 2023.
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