Throughout the year, a total of 447 incidents were recorded in the cryptocurrency sector. Although the loss decreased significantly compared to the previous year, the number of attacks actually increased.
“While the decrease in losses to $1.9 billion from $52.3 billion in 2022 seems positive at first glance, a closer examination reveals a disheartening reality – the number and complexity of attacks are on the rise,” experts warned.
Interestingly, the largest hack of the year, involving Multichain, did not even rank within the top 10 most damaging incidents of the past two years.
Remarkably, crypto projects managed to recover approximately $400 million or 20% of the stolen funds. Effective negotiations and communication with the hackers played a significant role in reclaiming the stolen assets. The report highlighted a successful case involving the Euler Finance hack, where the hacker returned the full amount of around $200 million in cryptocurrency after negotiations with the project.
In a recent discovery by analysts at Arkham Intelligence, an unprecedented level of activity was observed from North Korean hackers belonging to the Lazarus group. They were seen transferring dozens of bitcoins between accounts or utilizing cryptomixers. So far, the North Korean hackers have moved a total of 27,371 BTC ($1.2 million) into the cryptocurrency mixer, with 3,343 BTC being sent to a previously inactive address.