April Was the Worst Ever Month on Record for Crypto Hacks
READING TIME 3 MINUTES
April was the worst month on record for crypto projects getting hacked, with 29 incidents tracked by crypto data provider DefiLlama. In terms of dollar value, $651 million in losses were recorded, which is the largest monthly total since March 2022 (excluding the February 2025 Bybit hack), according to crypto security firm Certik. In response to these most recent incidents, many crypto market observers are questioning whether blockchain infrastructure can be relied upon by traditional financial institutions. Additionally, the centrally-planned responses to many of these hacks have also exposed the decentralization theater that is prevalent throughout the industry.
Drift and Kelp DAO were the two most notable crypto hacks in April, combining for $579 million in losses. The situation with Drift also points to a persistent problem in the crypto industry of thefts originating from North Korea. According to the Drift team, the hack of their protocol involved a six-month social engineering operation that eventually led to North Korean agents gaining access to critical infrastructure that allowed a sophisticated manipulation of the protocol in order to extract hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto. Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs also recently put out a report pointing out that 76% of all crypto value extracted from hacks this year is connected to North Korea (solely from the Drift and Kelp DAO incidents), with the regime taking in more than $6 billion from their crypto hacking operations over the years.
No comments:
Post a Comment