Crypto Hacks Surge in July 2024, PeckShield Reports $266M in Losses

Crypto-related hacks continue to plague the ecosystem. In July 2024, PeckShield reported a significant surge in such security breaches.

The blockchain investigation firm found that 16 incidents resulted in approximately $266 million in losses during the period.

The most severe breach was the Indian centralized crypto exchange WazirX, which suffered a staggering $230 million loss. Experts attributed the attack to the notorious North Korea-backed Lazarus Group, which began laundering the stolen funds using crypto-mixing services such as Tornado Cash.

In response, WazirX halted operations and offered a $23 million bounty to encourage the attackers to return the stolen assets. The exchange also suggested a “socialized loss strategy” to distribute the financial impact fairly among all users.

Closely following WazirX’s losses was the popular algorithmic protocol Compound which faced a potential governance attack worth $24 million. Meanwhile, bridging protocol LI.FI and decentralized AI protocol Bittensor was targeted for $9.73 million and $8 million, respectively.

Next up were liquidity provider RhoMarkets and decentralized lending platform DeltaPrime which experienced breaches of $7.6 million and $1 million respectively, but both managed to recover a substantial portion of their funds. Other affected platforms included Terra with $4 million, DoughFina with $1.86 million, Minterest with $1.4 million, and MonoSwap with $1.3 million.

It is important to note that most hackers transferred their loot to Tornado Cash to obscure their trails. Additionally, June had fewer losses, totaling $176 million across 20 separate cases.

Besides exploits, exit scams in the space accounted for almost $3 million in losses last month, as per another prominent blockchain security firm, CertiK.