According to information from Immunefi, the number of attacks in the cryptocurrency business increased by 192%. The rate went from 25 to 73 this past quarter.
Notwithstanding this significant increase, the overall amount lost is down by 64.4%—likely due to market circumstances.
Immunefi assessed the total amount of crypto funds lost by the community due to hacks and scams. They achieved the result by reviewing, validating, and classifying publicly available data. They have been conducting similar reports since 2021.
Another important investigation finding was that the BNB Chain was the main target of fraud and attacks. In fact, according to Immunefi, the BNB Chain surveyed about 73.3% of all rug pulls on the scene.
A rug pull occurs when a project obtains money, such as for a new token or NFT collection, promising consumers specific benefits. Still, the developers later quit the project, failed to provide the benefits, and kept the money from the buyers.
Forked code is leading to exploits and rugs in the Crypto world
Developers still utilizing forked code is a major problem for BNB Chain, “Adrian Hetman Tech, the team’s triaging lead at Immunfi, was said in the paper. “Its community draws many individuals searching for an easy way to make money but does not prioritize security. Because of this, many exploits and rugs are still pulled into this ecosystem.
Almost $440 million was stolen in the first quarter of 2023, but fortunately, 40.5% of that amount was found, thanks to Euler Finance and SperaxUSD.
Given that the Euler attacker has formally refunded all monies as of April 3, this amount is probably larger.
95.7% of losses attributed to crypto hacks, fraud, scams, and rug pulls accounted for only 4.3% of total losses.
With audits and bug bounties, projects improved their security procedures over the past year. However, blackhats have kept up, according to an Immunefi spokeswoman who communicated with Decrypt through email. The author stated that they have been learning about industry standards and honing their skills. It’s showing in this rise in the number of successful hacks and rug pulls.
Blackhats can profit from projects that start prioritizing other budget items over security in a bear market. Although developers must be correct at every stage of the development process to ensure no gaps in the system, blackhats only need to be correct once during their attack. It is a difficult job and a nearly unfair battle.
