Picture this: crafty cybercriminals have their sights set on centralized finance (CeFi) platforms, slipping through the cracks by posing as friendly recruiters or sneaking in fake employees. Their goal? Exploit those pesky infrastructure vulnerabilities and make off with piles of digital dough.
Fast forward to November 2024, and the hacking scene was ablaze! A whopping 99.96% of losses stemmed from these digital bandits. Meanwhile, scams and rug pulls took a backseat, barely making a dent with losses totaling just $25,300 from two incidents.
Our buddies at Immunefi dropped some eye-opening stats, revealing that decentralized finance (DeFi) bore the brunt of the attacks, with a total hit of $71 million in losses for November. But hey, that's a silver lining compared to the $343 million lost during the same month in 2023. Phew!
Now, CeFi managed to dodge the bullet for November, reporting zero incidents. But don't get too comfortable! Immunefi warns that CeFi is back on the hackers' radar, with almost half of the year-to-date losses—$724 million—coming from CeFi breaches. That's a huge jump from the past few years when these attacks were on the decline. In Q3 2024 alone, CeFi hacks accounted for a staggering 72% of all losses, with one major hit at India’s WazirX exchange costing a jaw-dropping $235 million.
These breaches are no joke, especially when they’re targeting hot wallets. Just nine CeFi attacks this year matched the damage of 200 DeFi breaches. Cybercrooks are getting sneakier, using tactics like impersonating recruiters or slipping in fake hires to crack security systems.
The rise in these crafty attacks is like a ticking time bomb, often going undetected until it's too late.
Zooming out, BNB Chain took the hardest hit with 14 attacks, making up 46.7% of November’s losses. Ethereum wasn’t far behind, with nine incidents accounting for 30% of the losses.
As for Solana, Polygon, Fantom, Avalanche, Arbitrum, and Aptos, each faced one attack, collectively shouldering 3.3% of the losses per chain. The year's been no picnic, with ecosystem losses totaling $1.49 billion across 209 incidents. May and July were particularly brutal, with losses surpassing $359 million and $282 million, respectively. Stay vigilant, folks!
