The bug bounty platform for blockchain, Immunefi, has published a report on crypto losses in Q3 of 2024, with just over $412 million reported to have been lost from the Web3 ecosystem.
In the third quarter, the company writes that $409,906,947 was lost to hacks across 31 specific incidents and the remaining $3,087,552 was due to fraud in three incidents.
While that sounds like a staggering number, the total loss of Q3 2024 is actually a 40% decrease from what was seen in Q3 of 2023.
The number of individual successful attacks is also said to have “decreased by 54% from 75 in Q3 2023 to 34 in Q3 2024.”
The report says “There is nearly $90 billion in capital locked across web3 protocols as of September 2024.”
The predominant cause of losses was said to be from hacks, accounting for 99.25% of losses. While fraud was present, it only counted for 0.75% of the total hits.
Two major crypto hacks occurred during the quarter
A significant portion of the sum lost during the quarter was said to be due to two incidents. This includes on July 18, 2024, when “WazirX, an Indian crypto exchange, was hacked, resulting in a massive loss of $235 million.”
A couple of months later, on September 20, Bingx – a Singapore-based crypto exchange also suffered an attack.
The Founder and CEO at Immunefi, Mitchell Amador, said in the report: “We’re seeing a higher number of incidents targeting DeFi, while CeFi experiences fewer incidents but often with more severe consequences, with hundreds of millions in stolen funds in a single exploit.
“In CeFi, the biggest infrastructural issue is private key management, which is essential to maintaining the self-custody of crypto assets but is not typically subject to security audits. It requires rigorous key management policies, practices, and emergency plans.”
The data used within the analysis is said to have come from what is publicly available, as well as news reports and other information.
Featured Image: via Ideogram
