Cryptocurrency heists are getting more ambitious — and costlier to investors

While 2022 has been a typically roller coaster year for cryptocurrency buyers, it seems to be exceptional for a group of virtual money enthusiasts: thieves. Criminals have already stolen more than $ 1 billion in cryptography this year.

Attacks a Crypto.com in January, Wormhole in February and Ronin Network last month caused multimillion-dollar losses. Cybersecurity experts say hackers often target decentralized funding platforms or DeFi, with weak security. DeFi services are typically based on public blockchains, allowing users to exchange back and forth cryptography without the need for an established financial institution such as a bank or credit union.

“We should expect this type of [sophisticated] Attacks continue to escalate as more and more criminal organizations develop DeFi hacking skills in-house, “Mitchell Amador, CEO of cybersecurity audit firm Immunefi, told Yahoo Finance earlier this month.” moreover, as DeFi gets bigger and bigger, these types of attacks become more and more lucrative. “

The latest attack came last week when an unknown hacker stole $ 182 million from Beanstalk Farms, the fourth-largest hacker in a DeFi service to date. PeckShield, a blockchain security company in China, said the thieves used a “flash loan” to exploit security vulnerabilities in Beanstalk. A flash loan is an unsecured loan that avoids the need for collateral by the borrower through the use of smart contracts that require repayment at the end of a transaction, usually within seconds or minutes.

Much of the $ 182 million sold out went to commissions on exchange platforms, such as Uniswap and Aave, used to carry out the attack. In the end, the culprit took over house 24,830 on ether and 36 million BEAN chips. Beanstalk officials said in a blog post that hackers earned about $ 76 million from users’ cryptographic properties. It is unclear whether Beanstalk, which launched last August, has been able to recover stolen cryptography.

PeckShield said the hacker stole the stolen cryptocurrency using Tornado Cash, a service that allows users to transfer cryptocurrencies anonymously.

Since the attack, users have contacted Beanstalk with suggestions on how to strengthen security. Beanstalk said in its blog post that it is taking these thoughts into account and “is preparing a strategy to safely re-launch a safer Beanstalk with a way forward.”

Hackers have already snatched more than $ 1.2 billion in cryptography from DeFi platforms this year, according to Immunefi, compared to $ 154 million in the first quarter of 2021. Throughout 2020, hackers stole a total of $ 162 million in cryptography of DeFi platforms, according to data from the blockchain analysis company Chainalysis.

“We have also seen significant growth in the use of DeFi protocols for money laundering, a practice of which we saw scattered examples in 2020 and which became more common in 2021,” Chainalysis said in a statement. report. “DeFi protocols saw the largest growth in money laundering use by 1,964%.