The prices of most cryptocurrencies have fallen sharply in recent months. But that doesn’t matter much to hackers, according to cybersecurity company SonicWall. It total amount of tokens looted is even higher, despite the lower prices.
Record in crypto hacks
In a biannual survey the company describes that the global volume of stolen tokens increased to $66.7 million in the first half of 2022. That is no less than 30% more than in the first half of 2021. January and February are head and shoulders above the other months. January saw a record $18.4 million in thefts. That is almost three times the previous record set in March of 2020, which was USD 15.49 million.
A large amount of money was also stolen in February of this year. But after that, the volume dropped sharply – luckily, in this case. In May, the amount even fell below 5 million dollars.
Shifts and changes
What is special is that there seems to be a very high correlation between the amounts that are hacked and the seasonality in the market. Crypto assets historically performed very well at the end of the year. Summer is often characterized by little upward prices.
You can clearly see this in the volume. It is not clear where this comes from; maybe a lot of criminals are also on vacation in the summer, or maybe the interest is less.
On average, hackers have also developed a preference for other sectors. Previously, the government, educational institutions and healthcare institutions were mainly affected by, for example, ransomware. The ransom often had to (and should) be paid in crypto.
But now the retail industry and finance world have been hit. Retailers are 63% more affected compared to last year. In fact, hacks in the finance industry have increased by 269%.
It is not clear whether SonicWall will include Decentralized Finance (DeFi) in this. In recent times we have seen a lot of hacks of decentralized trading platforms, criminals may prefer to attack these than centralized parties. The security researcher will probably in any case include the latter in the calculation.
