Between January and June 2023, attackers stole $656 million in cryptocurrency, of which 45.5% were recovered.
According to a Beosin study, $656 million was lost in the first half of 2023 due to hacking attacks, fraud schemes, and cryptocurrency scams. However, $215 million of stolen assets were returned to users.
In the first half of this year, hackers carried out a total of 108 attacks on various blockchain protocols and withdrew $471.43 million in cryptocurrency. Another $108 million was stolen as a result of phishing attacks. Fraudsters also carried out 110 Rug Pull schemes and, as a result, seized digital assets totaling $75.87 million.
Beosin analysts, however, note that losses from hacking attacks on the crypto market have decreased significantly compared to previous periods. Thus, in the first half of 2023, attackers managed to steal 72% less money than in the second half of 2022. At the same time, about 80% of all attacks this year took place in the DeFi sector, which remains the most vulnerable.
Recall that a recent study showed that in just the second quarter of 2023, hackers were able to steal more than $208.5 million from various DeFi protocols.
Beosin analysts also revealed that thanks to successful investigations and agreements with hackers in the first half of 2023, 45.5% of stolen funds were recovered. It is worth noting that this figure is significantly higher than last year’s annual figure when hackers managed to return only about 8% of stolen funds.
About 76% of stolen cryptocurrencies were tokens issued in the Ethereum blockchain network and only 2.6% in BNB Chain. Analysts also revealed that over half of the stolen funds were withdrawn due to smart contract vulnerabilities. At the same time, analysts could not clearly identify the causes of about 20% of the attacks, resulting in hackers stealing over $100 million in cryptocurrency.
It’s worth mentioning that the largest hack this year was the attack on Euler Finance, which cost the DeFi sector at least $196 million.
