$488.5M in Stolen Crypto Recovered as 2024 Losses Hit $3B: PeckShield

by

2024 has seen an alarming increase in cyber attacks targeting cryptocurrencies, coinciding with a thriving bull market according to PeckShield’s recent findings.

As a researcher, I’m heartened to report that despite the disheartening data on asset theft, our recovery efforts have been successful in retrieving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of these stolen assets.

Crypto Losses in 2024

According to PeckShield’s Annual Report on Cryptocurrency Security for 2024, the previous year saw an uptick in incidents of crypto-related breaches. The overall losses surpassed a staggering $3 billion. Out of this total, about $2.15 billion was due to hacking incidents, while approximately $834.5 million came from scams. This signifies a 15% rise in losses compared to the previous year, 2023.

Although the frequency of events has reduced over the past three years, the financial repercussions are still substantial, especially within the DeFi field where most losses occur. The report underscored that May 2024 was particularly devastating with losses reaching a staggering $662.2 million, and January following closely behind at $440.8 million in losses.

Noteworthy among the major cyber thefts was the DMM Bitcoin break-in, leading to a financial loss of approximately $305 million. This was seconded by the PlayDapp exploit, resulting in a loss of around $290 million. However, on a hopeful side, recovery initiatives successfully recovered an estimated $488.5 million worth of stolen assets.

In December, CertiK reported that crypto losses dropped to their lowest of the year at approximately $28.6 million. Exploits were responsible for most of these losses, totaling around $26.7 million, with Gempad experiencing the highest individual loss at about $2.14 million. However, even with this decrease, phishing scams continue to pose a significant risk, as one victim lost a substantial amount, approximately $7.87 million.

Phishing Still A Concern

In a recent incident, the CEO of Animoca Brands, Yat Siu, had his X account hacked. The intruders exploited this access to distribute a bogus token and steal approximately $500,000 from users of cryptocurrencies. At the same time, a phishing scheme exposed by SlowMist utilized false Zoom links to install malware that pilfered crypto wallet information, resulting in losses exceeding $1 million. The traced funds were found to be involved in money laundering operations on platforms like Binance and Gate.io, suggesting connections to Russian-speaking entities.

Lately, the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike uncovered a phishing scheme where hackers disguised themselves as the company and sent out fraudulent job offer emails. Their aim was to contaminate victims’ systems with the Monero cryptocurrency mining software known as XMRig.

In simpler terms, fraudulent emails trick job applicants into believing they need to download a sham employee management app from a bogus CrowdStrike site. Once installed, harmful software is designed to bypass detection and subsequently installs and runs XMRig miner secretly in the background, using little system resources to keep suspicion at bay.

Read More

2025-01-12 23:00