Attackers who hijacked Curve Finance’s landing page moved quickly to convert stolen funds to various tokens through different exchanges, wallets and mixers.
White hat hackers have returned $32.6M worth of tokens to Nomad bridge
The cross-chain bridge was drained of its assets in less than three hours.
Solana and Ethereum smart contract audits, explained
What are smart contract audits, how do they work, and how do they benefit the crypto projects who get their code scrutinized? Let’s find out.
Blockchain isn’t as decentralized as you think: Defense agency report
The report published Tuesday highlights several scenarios in which various actors can garner excessive, centralized control of a blockchain system.
IRA Financial Trust to sue Gemini over $36M crypto assets exploit back in February
It’s unclear at the time of publication whether there will be any recourse for investors in recovering the lost funds.
Hacker bungles DeFi exploit: Leaves stolen $1M in contract set to self destruct
A hacker apparently so thrilled by a successful theft left behind over $1 million in a smart contract that was set to destruct, permanently ensuring the crypto could never be moved.
Beanstalk Farms offers plea deal to perpetrators of $76M exploit
Beanstalk Farms offered a whitehat bounty to exploiters and outlined its plans moving forward should it be unsuccessful in its plea.
Beanstalk Farms loses $182M in DeFi governance exploit
The stablecoin protocol saw its own governance proposal system exploited enabling the malicious actors to extract all of its $182 million in collateral.
Polygon stablecoin QiDAO exploited for $13M on Superfluid vested contract
Early information suggested that the stolen funds belonged to some of the early backers of the project and included team vested tokens.
Qubit Finance suffers $80 million loss following hack
The addresses linked to the hack attack have managed to steal 206,809 Binance Coin from Qubit’s QBridge protocol.
Multichain asks users to revoke approvals amid ‘critical vulnerability’
Multichain is asking users to revoke approvals to protect their assets amid a vulnerability that is currently being exploited.
Over $10 Billion Has Been Lost To DeFi Exploits In 2021
Decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms have been the target of criminal attacks this year. Investors in the blockchain-based form of finance have lost billions of dollars to criminals that target the platforms.
The total amount of money deposited at DeFi services has spiked from just $500 million in 2019 to $247 billion this year.
Related Reading | Dog-Themed DeFi Project Mysteriously Loses Fundraised $60 Million
According to a report from London-based firm Elliptic, the overall losses caused by DeFi exploits have totaled $12 billion in the past year. Out of that amount, fraud and theft accounted for $10.5 billion, seven times the amount last year.
DeFi, which has drawn in billions of dollars in investor funds, has also been a frequent target by hackers. They exploit poorly protected protocols, mostly using flash loans.
Related Reading | Poly Network Confirms Hacker Has Returned Most Of The Stolen Crypto
One of the popular attacks this year was the Poly Network hack. Hackers exploited a vulnerability in the multi-chain interoperability protocol. And they took off with roughly $600 million worth of various cryptocurrencies. They however returned most of the stolen funds.
DeFi – The Wild West Of Cryptocurrencies
Elliptic is a firm that tracks movements of funds on the digital ledgers that underpin cryptocurrencies. It recently reported that DeFi exploits amounted to $12 billion this year.
DeFi is often called the “Wild West” of cryptocurrencies because it is still the most unregulated area of crypto. DeFi platforms allow users to lend, borrow and save – usually in cryptocurrencies – without any involvement from middlemen like banks.
“The DeFi ecosystem is an incredibly exciting and fast-moving space, with financial services innovation happening at light speed,” said Tom Robinson, chief scientist at Elliptic. “This is attracting large amounts of capital to projects that are not always robust or well-tested. Criminal actors have seen the opportunity to exploit this.”
According to the report, the underlying technology of DeFi is built on open infrastructure. However, that technology is “relatively immature and untested.” There are bugs in code as well as design flaws that enable criminals to target the platforms.
DeFi market cap at $165.47B | Source: Crypto Total DeFi Market Cap on TradingView.com
“Decentralized apps are designed to be trustless in that they eliminate any third-party control of users’ funds,” said Robinson. “But you must still trust that the creators of the protocol have not made a coding or design mistake that could lead to a loss of funds.”
Criminals can also easily launder proceeds of crime while leaving few traces. “The irreversible nature of crypto transactions make it very challenging to recover these funds,” says the report.
Call For Regulation
With the alarming number of exploits the space is facing, there are calls for DeFi regulation. Regulators are now also turning attention to the sector. However, the actions of regulators in the coming months will play a significant role in determining how well they thrive in the future.
Featured image by Aergo, Chart from TradingView.com
DeFi platform Vee Finance exploited for $35M on Avalanche blockchain
Vee Finance says it suffered a $35 million attack just a few days after launching the mainnet on Avalanche last week.
Latest DeFi hack targeting BSC sees $12.7M in Bitcoin stolen from pNetwork
Roughly $12.7 million worth of tokenized Bitcoin has been stolen from the BSC-based cross-chain composability platform pNetwork.
Beleaguered DeFi project xToken suffers second major exploit since May
xToken has been exploited for around $4.5 million following the latest attack targeting the DeFi protocol’s smart contracts.
White hat potentially saves SushiSwap $350M by finding ‘obvious’ exploit
The security researcher found a flaw in a dutch auction smart contract that could have resulted in the loss of 109,000 ETH.
Bondly Finance urges users to stop trading following alleged exploit
The DeFi platform’s native token price dropped more than 60% following a compromise by an unknown party.
Belt Finance loses millions in latest BSC-based DeFi exploit
Another day, another BSC DeFi protocol gets hacked.
Binance Smart Chain-based DeFi platform suffers $3M flash loan attack
Funds are safe, Bogged Finance assured after the exploit.
Finance Redefined: Never a dull day in DeFi! May 5-12
One of the busiest days of the year for DeFi featured exploits, rugpulls, protocol pivots, and more.