Photo credit: fjcomp/Freepik

Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis reported that the funds stolen in crypto heists have nearly doubled year-over-year (YoY), rising from $857 million to $1.5 billion by the end of July. This increase occurred despite a 20% drop in illicit on-chain activity year-to-date.

The number of hacking incidents has increased by 2.76% YoY in comparison to 2023, according to the data from Chainalysis. An analysis of the crypto hacks revealed that the average amount of value compromised per event has increased by 79.46%. 

After analyzing the nature of the crypto hacks, the firm confirmed: 

“Crypto thieves seem to be returning to their roots and targeting centralized exchanges again after four years focused on their decentralized counterparts, which typically do not trade bitcoin.”

Chainalysis believes that the crypto attackers, including hackers from North Korea, are implementing “sophisticated social engineering tactics,” including applying for IT jobs to steal crypto by infiltrating their targets in centralized exchanges.  

In July 2024, there were 14 incidents due to hacks and fraud that created a loss of $269.43 million, which is a 90% increase month-over-month, according to a report from Immunefi. Among the 14 incidents, the attacks on WazirX and LI.FI protocol incurred the most losses $235 million and $10 million, respectively.

Immunefi also confirmed with Chainalysis’s speculation that most of the losses in 2024 are caused by attacks targeting CeFi infrastructure. DeFi suffered a total loss of approximately $34.43 million across 13 incidents and CeFi incurred a $235 million loss caused by the WazirX incident. 

Read more: Crypto hackers ran off with $176M in June, down 69% from May