Fraudsters have stolen more than $2.3 billion worth of cryptocurrencies since the beginning of the year

Since the beginning of 2022, scammers have stolen cryptocurrencies worth more than $2.3 billion, 98.8% of all hacks were on decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, according to a report by ImmuneFi.

According to an organization specializing in blockchain security, in the period from July to September, crypto platforms and their users lost more than $428 million, 30 project hacks and nine fraud attacks were committed.

One of the biggest attacks recently was the hacking of the Nomad Bridge project, in August, attackers stole $190 million from the company. Then Nomad offered hackers to return 90% of the funds, which would allow them to avoid criminal prosecution. The attack on the Wintermute market maker claimed $160 million. In addition, the Raccoon Network and Freedom Protocol cryptoplatforms turned out to be fraudulent and transferred more than $20.8 million in BUSD stablecoin to a third-party account.

The actions of the attackers mainly affect the DeFi sector, the losses of decentralized financing platforms account for 98.8% of all losses.

According to ImmuneFi, the BNB Chain blockchain accounted for 28.6% of hacks, while Ethereum ecosystem projects, in turn, accounted for 23.2% of attacks.

The total damage caused by hackers since the beginning of the year is $2.328 billion.

Fraudsters stole most of these funds at the beginning of the year: $1.229 billion in the first quarter, and $670 million in the second.

The main reason for the vulnerability of DeFi services to hackers is the openness of part of the source code of such platforms. Attackers look for errors in the code and use them for hacking.