Despite WazirX, Q3 crypto hack and fraud losses dropped to $413 million
According to a September 26 report from blockchain security platform Immunefi, losses from crypto hacking and fraud fell 40% year-over-year to $413 million in the 3rd quarter of 2024.
Last year's third quarter loss was $685 million. Quarterly losses also decreased by approximately 28% compared to the second quarter of the current year.
Despite the good news, Q3 saw some impressive crypto hacks and exploits. According to the report, the biggest hack of the quarter was on the WazirX crypto exchange, which caused a loss of $235 million, and the second biggest was the $52 million BingX hack. These hacks accounted for more than 69% of total losses in the quarter.
Top crypto losses Q4 2024. Source: Immunefi.
Losses from carpet and other types of fraud represent a very small portion of the quarter's total. Only $3 million was lost in three cases, which is 0.8 percent. Overall, fraud losses were down 86.4 percent compared to the same quarter last year.
Hacks vs. fraud analysis Q3 2024. Source: Immunefi.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) exploitation has been greatly reduced. $103 million was lost in DeFi on 31 occasions, a 79.2% decrease from the $500 million loss in Q3 2023.
Although losses in most sectors are decreasing, the potential for large losses on central exchanges continues to disrupt the crypto space.
Eminefi founder Michel Amadour said key management to reduce these losses remains the biggest “infrastructure issue”.
We are seeing a large number of them targeting DeFi and CeFi. [centralized finance] It happens a few times but often has far worse consequences, with hundreds of millions of stolen funds per exploit. In CeFi, the biggest infrastructure issue is private key management, which is important for self-maintenance of crypto assets but is not typically exposed to security audits. Requires strict key management policies, practices and contingency plans.
Related: 7 ways to keep your private keys safe
Crypto losses were on a very low trend before Q2 2024, with wallet software identifying fraudulent addresses and warning users not to interact with them.
In Q1, losses fell by 23 percent. But they improved again in Q2, because private key hacks on central exchanges led to a 115% increase in losses.
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