Crypto Hacks in November Hit Nearly $350M; Up 15X Than October

YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) — Crypto hackers amplified their attacks on the industry in November, stealing over $343 million in one month. This figure marks the highest monthly crypto losses in 2023 so far. According to a detailed analysis by Immunefi, a leading security services platform in the blockchain space, November losses registered an increase of over 15 times from October’s hacks. Grifters succeeded in exploiting approximately $22 million the previous month. 

Moreover, between January and November 2023, the crypto industry lost approximately $1.75 billion across 296 hack incidents.

Although September also registered over $40 million in crypto losses, the number had dropped by over 90% in October. 

DeFi breathes easy: CeFi takes the brunt of crypto hackers

In a surprising twist, Centralized Finance (CeFi) platforms became the primary target for exploits in November 2023. The number of attacks on them surpassed those of Decentralized Finance (DeFi), the usual target of heisters. 

As the report suggests, CeFi accounted for 53.8% of total losses. Meanwhile, DeFi’s losses represented 46.2%. On November 10, hackers targeted centralized crypto exchange Poloniex, stealing over $120 million. 

Moreover, in a more recent hack, grifters stole over $22 million from Kronos Research, another centralized platform. 

Meanwhile, hacks emerged as the predominant cause of these losses. For comparison, there were 23 fraud cases in November, which caused losses of a little short of $7.5 million. That is just 2.23% of the total figure. Meanwhile, 18 attacks by crypto hackers cost platforms $336 million, or 97.8%.

Hacks were the predominant cause of losses, amounting to approximately $336 million in November, compared to $7.46 million due to fraud. Hacks represented 97.8% of total losses, while fraud accounted for 2.2%.

BNB Chain and Ethereum: The primary targets of hacks

BNB Chain and Ethereum (ETH) remain the most targeted chains for hackers. At 83%, the two jointly suffered the majority of the total losses in November 2023.

The BNB Chain alone faced 22 incidents, making up 53.7% of the losses. Meanwhile, Ethereum-based projects suffered 12 attacks, representing 29.3% of the total exploited funds. 

Meanwhile, other networks that suffered losses from crypto hackers include Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Fantom, and Heco Chain.