July crypto hack totals $266M, WazirX leads loss.
In July, online hackers stole about $266 million from the cryptocurrency ecosystem and its investors in 16 separate attacks.
On July 18, Indian crypto exchange WazirX lost over $230 million in a major hack – representing 86.4% of the total crypto lost to hacks in the month. After an independent investigation, the hack was attributed to North Korean hackers, based on the exploit's methodology and techniques.
An overview of general injuries in July
Blockchain investigative firm PeckShield reported that the stolen WazirX funds totaled 61,154 Ether (ETH) under the hacker's control as of August 1.
Other notable crypto-hack victims include Algorithmic Protocol Merger Finance ($24 million) in July, Bridge Protocol Li
In most cases, hackers move the looted funds to crypto mixer Tornado Cash to track down the looters and escape any chance.
In contrast to July's hacks, June saw a relatively low loss of $176 million in crypto hacks spread across nearly 20 incidents.
RELATED: Over 70% of Hacked Funds Lost to SeFi Entities – CYVERS
Centralized crypto entities are the biggest target.
In late July, the famous Terra blockchain was temporarily halted at block 11430400 following a hack that cost $6 million.
Exploiting a known vulnerability, the Terra hacker stole 60 million ASTRO (ASTRO), 500,000 USD (USDT), 3.5 million USD (USDC) and 2.7 Bitcoin (BTC).
Terra developers completed an emergency chain update before resuming block production on the same day. An update from the company said:
“More than 67% of validators voting on Terra have upgraded their nodes to prevent the exploit from happening again. More verifications are expected to be upgraded soon.”
According to Dedi Lavid, founder and CEO of Web3 security firm Cybers, centralized finance (CeFi) entities are the biggest target of cryptocurrency hackers in 2024.
“Attacks on projects based on smart contracts are on the rise,” he told Cointelegraph earlier. Lavid added that today's biggest security vulnerabilities stem from code and personal negligence.
Magazine: THORChain Founder and His Plan to ‘Vampire Attack' All DeFi
