The greatest victim of blockchain assaults in 2022 was BNB Chain, which suffered a loss to hackers of almost 750 million dollars.
In fact, 2022 was a difficult year for the cryptocurrency sector, characterized by sharp drops in the value of key assets, liquidity problems for many businesses, and an awful number of bankruptcies. As hackers stole billions of dollars from consumers via DeFi protocols, the sector also faced serious security risks.
In a report titled "Blockchain Security and AML Analysis," published by the blockchain security company SlowMist, the flow of stolen monies from more than 300 attacks that took place in 2022 were examined in order to give readers an overview of the security situation in various crypto industry sectors.
In 2022, hackers stole over $3.7B
Last year, there were 303 blockchain-related security incidents, costing an estimated $3.7 billion in losses (calculated at the market price at the time of the exploit).
When compared to the $9.795 billion lost in 2021, the amount lost indicates a 61% decrease, albeit SlowMist does not account for value lost due to market volatility.
According to the research, 255 security breaches occurred that had an impact on a number of ecosystems, including DeFi, cross-chain bridges, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Ten security problems involving cryptocurrency exchanges, 11 attacks on public chains, six wallet exploits, and 21 other sorts were also reported.
Cross-chain bridges reported $1.212 billion in stolen funds, or around 32% of the total amount throughout the year, while the DeFi ecosystem lost $2.075 billion to hackers, or almost 55% of the total losses for the year.
According to the study, 56 security incidents involving losses of more than $65.44 million were documented in the NFT industry. The report stated.
“Many of these incidents were caused by phishing attacks, accounting for about 39% (22 incidents), followed by Rug Pulls, accounting for about 21% (12 incidents). The remaining 30% (17 incidents) were caused by contract vulnerabilities or other internal factors,”
The largest hack victim in 2022 will be BNB Chain
According to the research, BNB Chain (formerly known as Binance Smart Chain, or BSC) was the main target of events involving blockchain security in 2017. 79 attacks on the blockchain caused losses of up to $785 million.
According to the study, blockchain mixers became more popular last year and hackers frequently use them to launder their illicit gains. According to the study, 40,065 BTC was placed to ChipMixer in 2022, while 1,233,129 ETH (about $2.83 billion) was deposited to the now-approved cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash.
In order to stop attackers from making money off of their crimes, the survey also highlighted that several industry projects have begun adopting effective blockchain anti-money laundering mechanisms.
Tether and Circle, the two stablecoin providers, blacklisted 376 addresses in 2022 to stop hackers from transferring payments from the wallets.
While crypto theft exceeded $3.7 billion in 2022, $20 billion in illicit crypto transactions were reported in a separate research for the same year.
