September 2023 left a heavy dent in the crypto space, as confirmed by CertiK, which divulged that a staggering $332 million were lost to an array of exploits, hacks, and scams. This month took the spotlight for crypto-related exploits with an amalgamation of unfortunate incidents perpetuating the steep loss.
Notably, the departure, or ‘exit’ scams, accounted for a relatively minor chunk of the losses, approximately $1.9 million, contrasted by the $400,000 lost to flash loans. The most colossal contributor, however, stood out to be exploits, erecting a rough $329.8 million dent in the month’s economy.
The Mixin Network couldn’t escape the storm on September 23 with a significant financial breach of its cloud service provider leading to a $200 million loss. The second considerable incident on September 12 saw CoinEx hot wallets experiencing a suspected attack, draining over $53.1 million.
Stake.com wasn’t spared either on September 4, succumbing to an attack that led to a $41 million loss, wherein an account received different cryptocurrencies and distributed them to several addresses. Diverse incidents including phishing and a personal loss of $900,000 by Mark Cuban etched a dark mark in the September crypto incidents archive, accelerating 2023’s yearly losses to over $1.34 billion.
2023, for the crypto-world, has been scandalized by the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking collective claimed to have executed most of the recent crypto-related attacks such as those against Stake.com and CoinEx. Reports link the infamy-infested group to enormous heists such as the $620 million theft from Sky Mavis’ Ronin Bridge, $100 million from Harmony’s Horizon Bridge, and Atomic Wallet alike.
Further exacerbating the situation, a report from BeosinAlert illumines the $889.26 million loss from the Web3 sector due to hacks, phishing scams, and rug pulls in Q3 2023. This figure even towers over the combined P&L of Q1 and Q2 at $330 and $333 million, respectively.
The US government alleges that around half of North Korea’s funding for its missile program is funneled from cybercrime and crypto theft, sparking investigations on North Korea’s cybercrime and crypto-related mastery. Current data from Dune Analytics manifests that the Lazarus Group holds approximately $45.6 million in crypto assets, although it’s significantly decreased from the $86 million held shortly after the Stake.com breach in September. All these high-profile cyber exploits and attacks hint at the critical task of enhancing security in the crypto-ecosphere while also raising ethical concerns about cryptocurrency’s potential misuse.
Source: Cryptonews
