Orbit Bridge Hack Pushes December Crypto Heist to Nearly $100M
A recent attack on Orbit Chain's cross-chain bridge increased the amount of crypto stolen to nearly $100 million by December 2023, according to blockchain security firms.
On January 1, blockchain security firm PeckShield reported that an $81.5 million cross-chain exploit by Orbit Bridge means December will be the fifth-highest month for hacks in 2023.
The exploit is the ninth major hacking operation to target a cross-chain bridge in the past three years, he said.
#PeckShieldAlert Hackers stole ~$99.3 million over 36 attacks in December. The cross-chain #OrbitBridge suffered an $81.5 million exploit on New Year's Eve, the 9th highest data targeting chain bridge in the last 3 years figure. twitter.com/6oGqu7gjLo
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) January 1, 2024
Orbit Bridge, a cross-Orbit Chain Protocol bridge service launched in South Korea in 2018, was later confirmed to have been compromised due to an unauthorized ecosystem access breach on December 31 at 8:52 pm UTC.
On January 1, the Orbit Chain team demanded that major international cryptocurrency exchanges freeze the stolen assets.
“We are in close contact with law enforcement agencies and are working diligently to locate and freeze the stolen assets,” he added.
In the year By 2023, billions have been lost to hackers.
Estimates by blockchain security firms PeckShield, CertiK and Beosin show that total crypto losses due to hacking, fraud and exploitation will reach between $1.51 billion and $2 billion by 2023.
September and November were particularly devastating, with more than $700 million lost in those two months alone, according to PeckShield data.
#CertiKStats alert
We have updated our EOM December statistics to reflect the Orbit Chain event.
A total of 116.5 million dollars was lost in December
See more details below pic.twitter.com/I2XS4RtdvL
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) January 1, 2024
This adds to the mixin network's loss of $200 million in September, while the biggest losses in November occurred on Poloniex and HTX/Heco Bridges, which lost $131.4 million and $113.3 million, respectively.
Other notable hacks of the year include the $197 million hack of Euler Finance in March and the $125 million hack of Multichain in July.
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Blockchain security firm Beosin, however, noted that hacking, phishing scams, and carpetbagging all saw significant declines compared to 2022, with total losses down to about $4.38 billion.
It also saw the largest drop in abduction losses, a 61.2 percent decline from $3.6 billion in 2022 to $1.4 billion in 2023.
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