The number of hacks in the cryptocurrency industry dropped by 54% in June compared to the previous month, according to security research firm PeckShield.
In an X post, PeckShield reported that the cryptocurrency sector recorded at least 20 hacks last month, leading to a loss of $176.2M. The amount lost was significantly lower than the $385M lost to hacking attacks in May 2024.
The data demonstrates that hacking attacks pose a significant challenge in the cryptocurrency industry.
Crypto Hacks Drop In June
The hack that resulted in the most losses in June 2024 was on the Turkish cryptocurrency exchange, BtcTurk. The hack affected the exchange’s hot wallets, resulting in a loss of more than $100 million.
Exchange giant Binance chipped in to help BtcTurk address the hacking exploit. Binance froze some of the funds stolen by the hackers and assisted in efforts to investigate the incident.
The other major hack in June was on another centralized exchange known as Lykke. The exploit resulted in a loss of $22 million, according to PeckShield.
The hacking exploit happened on June 4, leading to the Lykke cryptocurrency exchange halting withdrawals. After the exploit, the exchange assured users that their funds were safe and would be recovered.
The decentralized finance (DeFi) industry also suffered multiple hacking attacks during the month. One of these hacks targeted the UwULend DeFi platform, resulting in a loss of more than $19 million.
The Cyvers on-chain security firm alerted UwULend of the hacking exploit that affected multiple assets, including WBTC and DAI. The hacker later laundered the stolen funds using the crypto mixer Tornado Cash.
Blockchain tokenization platform Holograph also suffered a hacking attack that minted 1 billion $HLG tokens from the protocol valued at $14 million.
The hacker drained funds from the protocol by exploiting the Holograph Operator contract. The platform announced plans to offer a compensatory refund following the exploit.
Exploits in Q2 2024 Surpass $600M
Despite the decline in hacking attacks in June, the total number of hacking exploits in Q2 2024 was notably high compared to Q1 2024.
May 2024 saw the highest losses from hacking exploits, with nearly $385M in net losses. The biggest loss suffered during the month was the $305M worth of Bitcoin stolen from the DMM cryptocurrency exchange.
In April, around $60 million was stolen from hacking exploits, bringing the total amount of funds stolen in the second quarter to more than $600 million. This was a 115% increase compared to the $220 million hacking losses reported in Q2 2023.
Some of the most notable hacking exploits during the quarter, albeit with minimal losses, were on the OKX and Kraken cryptocurrency exchanges.
In the case of Kraken, a white hat hacker accessed $3M worth of exchange funds while testing a security flaw, but the funds were later returned to the exchange.
