DeFi platforms lost $228 mn to hackers in Q2: Report

SAN FRANCISCO: Decentralised Finance (DeFi) has lost $228 million in Q2 this year across 79 separate incidents to hackers, while centralised platforms lost $37 million across two incidents, a new report has shown.

Decentralized finance is an emerging model for organising and enabling cryptocurrency-based transactions, exchanges and financial services.

According to security services platform Immunefi, overall hacks across blockchains went up by 63 per cent in the second quarter compared to the same period last year.

Despite a 60 per cent drop in total losses, the report warned that hacks have increased by 65 per cent and fraud losses have skyrocketed by 225 per cent.

Moreover, the report mentioned that most of the crypto losses originated from two specific incidents -- Atomic Wallet, a self-custodial decentralized wallet, lost $100 million in crypto allegedly to hackers on June 3, and FinToch platform which lost almost $32 million on May 23.

Atomic Wallet's hack has been linked to the North Korean state-backed Lazarus Group, which has allegedly been responsible for some of the largest-scale exploits in the ecosystem, including the $100 million Harmony Bridge hack in June 2022.

"We have witnessed a considerable increase in rug pulls, both in terms of stolen funds and the number of incidents. As bad actors continue to expand their malicious activities and employ increasingly sophisticated scams, users must thoroughly assess projects," said Mitchell Amador Founder and CEO at Immunef.

The report also found that some chains were targeted more than others.

The attacks on BNB Chain and Ethereum made up 77 per cent of all losses in the last quarter, followed by Arbitrum at 12 per cent.