From analytics platform data Defillama It turns out that $21 million was stolen in February in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector by hackers. According to DefiLlama, the 21 million in stolen assets in February is a sharp increase compared to the previous month. In January, ‘only’ 740 thousand dollars were stolen in attacks on DeFi protocols.
Increase compared to January
The lion’s share of this was related to an attack on Platypus Finance. The platform lost $8.5 million due to an attack. A flaw in the code enabled the hack. The Platypus team managed to compensate 78 percent of the damage to customers. On February 25, two suspects linked to the hack were arrested in France. In addition, more than 2 tons of crypto assets were seized.
Another notable hack occurred on February 10. The dForce Network platform was stolen with $3.65 million in assets. A few days later the hacker emerged as a ‘white hat’ hacker; a good hacker who, as it were, exposes vulnerabilities in systems. The hacker returned all stolen assets to the platform.
DeFi remains vulnerable
Unfortunately, most of the incidents are not the work of such benevolent hackers. For example, in 2022, a total of $ 3.1 billion was stolen in hacks on DeFi platforms. This is evident from data from the blockchain analysis company Chainalysis. Compared to 2022, DeFi hackers are not very active so far in early 2023. The $3.1 billion in DeFi hacks represented 82 percent of all stolen crypto assets last year.
The DeFi sector is widely known as the ‘Wild West’ of crypto land. Minimal regulation and vulnerable protocols make it a haven for tech hackers. Despite that number starting to dwindle, hackers remain inventive, always looking for new ways to take advantage of programming errors.