Over half of the crypto losses were caused by attacks on the Solana and Binance Smart Chain ecosystems. Hackers targeted NFTs the most, resulting in a near $49 million loss. According to a research released Tuesday by Atlas VPN, crypto blockchain hackers stole about $700 million in 2022, with attacks on the Solana and Binance smart chain ecosystems accounting for well over half of that amount.
According to the research, cybercriminals took $682 million from 72 attacks in the first three months of the year. According to Atlas VPN’s research, which was based on figures from Hacked Slowmist, hacks of the Solana and BSC networks resulted in about $500 million in stolen cash, with $400 million taken from Solana and $100 million stolen from Binance smart chain.
NFTs were the most common target, with 20 hacks resulting in a loss of about $49 million. According to the research, some attackers employed Discord phishing tactics to collect victims’ NFTs.
“With the rise of new crypto ecosystems, cybercriminals get more targets they can exploit. In addition, the surging NFT trend attracted even more scammers to the industry,” Atlas VPN said.
The monetary losses were computed using the conversion rate of a specific cryptocurrency at the time of the attack.
The BSC environment has been hacked a total of 12 times, whereas the Solana ecosystem has been hijacked four times. In February of this year, Wormhole, a communication bridge between Solana and other decentralized finance (DeFi) networks, was the subject of the largest breach.
“An attacker exploited a signature verification vulnerability in the network to mint 120K Wormhole-wrapped ether on Solana, worth about $334 million,” Atlas VPN said.
In 2022, the ethereum ecosystem was hacked 16 times, resulting in a loss of almost $25 million. It was the top target for hackers in the first quarter of last year, with the same number of hackings.
The exchanges were hacked three times resulting in a loss of $42 million. Other forms of blockchain attacks resulted in $52 million in losses in nine cases. The majority of blockchain-related attacks are the result of cybercriminals taking advantage of weaknesses in the project code. A successful hack on a cryptocurrency platform might result in significant losses for producers and investors.
According to the data, blockchain-related thefts hit a new high in the first quarter of 2022, with an increase of 118 percent over the same period last year.
“The growing market of cryptocurrencies entices not only legit people interested in the technology, but also cybercriminals who want to exploit it,” Atlas VPN said.
According to a study by Crystal Blockchain, hackers stole more than $4 billion in cryptocurrency in 2021, nearly double the amount taken in 2020.
Last week, a crypto hacker targeted Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network and stole $625 million worth of ether and stablecoin USDC, making it one of the greatest heists in history.