🌎 Crypto Hacks Surge in August: $313M Lost to Phishing Attacks

The amount of cryptocurrencies lost to hackers and phishing attacks significantly increased in August while the market wandered in uncertainty. According to a report by blockchain security firm PeckShield, the crypto ecosystem lost $313.86 million in over 10 different hacks last month. Of this tally, over $293 million was lost to phishing attacks.

PeckShield’s August 2024 data highlights that the two largest hacks, both involving unauthorized transfers via phishing, accounted for 93.5% of the total stolen funds, amounting to $293.4 million. This shows an 18% increase in crypto assets lost to fraudulent actors since July. In comparison, crypto and decentralized finance companies lost $266 million to hackers with a total of 16 events in the previous month.

Top Hacks in August

The largest hack in August involved a whale that lost 4,064 Bitcoin, worth roughly $238 million, to a phishing attack on August 19. The attacker soon moved the funds to various crypto platforms including THORChain, KuCoin, and Railgun.

Similarly, another whale lost over $55 million in Dai stablecoin to a phishing attack. Data shows that the funds were stored in the fourth-largest DeFi protocol Maker. The hacker swapped the funds to Ethereum and currently doesn’t have any assets left in the address used for the attack.

On August 6, Ronin Network experienced a malicious 4,000 ETH transaction, worth $10 million. Fortunately, the attack wasn’t conducted by fraudulent actors; instead, whitehat hackers exploited a Maximum Extractable Value bug. The hackers returned the funds and pointed out the bug to Ronin Network’s developers. Subsequently, the company hinted at a $500,000 reward for the whitehat hackers as a bug bounty.

Another unauthorized transaction worth $5.1 million and Nexera’s $1.8 million exploit secured the fourth and fifth spots among the largest hacks in August, according to PeckShield.