Hackers had already stolen more crypto in mid-2022 than in all of 2021. In fact, the amount of 2022 was already a record in the history of crypto. But the trend of massive hacks may have ended now. In December, hackers were a lot milder.
December bad month for crypto hackers
This has emerged from research by CertiK Alert. On Twitter, this company writes that hackers stole approximately $62.2 million last December – the lowest amount of all of 2022. Despite the fact that hackers celebrated their heyday in 2022, December was a setback. This can be seen in not only the number of hacks, but also the amounts stolen.
The biggest hack in December was that of the DeFi protocol Helio, where a security vulnerability in sat. This protocol ‘only’ lost $15.5 million in BNB tokens. Nevertheless, the consequences were major, after which the associated HAY stablecoin lost its link to the dollar, after which it was only worth 21 cents.
The biggest exit scam was that of DeFrost Finance, where investors unintentionally gave some $13 million to criminals. Of flash loans you can also hack well. The largest cyberattack using this tactic was called Lodestar and was valued at $6.5 million.
Combining all the incidents in December we’ve confirmed ~$62.2M lost to exploits, hacks and scams.
The lowest monthly figure this year.
Exit scams were ~$15.5M
Flash loans were ~$7.6M
See the details below 👇 pic.twitter.com/1ub3mYVv6K
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) December 31, 2022
2022 right paradise for criminals in crypto
Yet this is relatively little. In November had the biggest hack according to CertiK a value of 477 million dollars, that was the hack of the now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. The second and third biggest hacks of the month were also bigger at $28 million and $18.5 million respectively. November’s total was also roughly $595 million, nearly ten times last month’s amount.
Earlier this year you could read in the crypto news that the rest of 2022 was characterized by a record amount of captured coins in hacks. In fact, October was the industry’s biggest month ever for hackers, with $718 million stolen.