Hackers are increasingly targeting DeFi (Decentralized Finance) cryptocurrency platforms, with Q1 2022 data showing that more platforms are being targeted than ever before.<\/p>\n
In 2021 alone, about $3.2 billion worth of digital assets were stolen, which was already an explosion compared to previous years.<\/p>\n
However, the trajectory for 2022 looks to be even more aggressive, with almost $1.3 billion already stolen during the Q1 alone.<\/p>\n
The new report comes fromChainalysis, which is seeing a massive rise in successful cyberattacks against cryptocurrency platforms, with attacks primarily focusing on DeFi platforms.<\/p>\n
A whopping 97% of all cryptocurrency stolen this year are from DeFi platforms, leaving a mere 3% to exchanges. While two years ago, DeFi accounted for only 30% of all digital assets stolen.<\/p>\n
Most of these attacks relied on exploiting code vulnerabilities or a security breach on the platform allowing cryptocurrency theft.<\/p>\n
DeFi platforms are completely decentralized and free of intermediaries, exchanges, and brokers, using a system of smart contracts on a blockchain to offer lending, trading, insuring, and interest-earning.<\/p>\n
DeFi platforms need to rely on transparent, open-source development models to convince investors of their trustworthiness, which allows researchers to analyze the smart contracts and services for bugs.<\/p>\n
However, this also allows threat actors to examine the same code and potentially find and exploit a bug before its fixed. Unfortunately, theres commonly a bug that lies undetected and unfixed, which malicious actors can use to siphon peoples funds in a flash.<\/p>\n
Another issue with DeFi platform security used to be the possibility to manipulate the market during a loan action, driving the value of the borrowed token down via excess slippage and then repurchasing it at a deflated price.<\/p>\n
This special flash loan attack unfolds in seconds and may simultaneously involve multiple DeFi platforms.<\/p>\n
In 2022, most protocols switched to using decentralized price oracles, which are resistant to manipulation, so the problem appears to have been addressed.<\/p>\n
Stealing cryptocurrency is one thing, but obscuring the path to your pocket and making it usable withoutgoing to prisonis another.<\/p>\n
According to Chainalysis data, threat actors passed most of the stolen assets in 2022 through risky laundering services such ascoin tumblersand illegal exchanges on the dark web.<\/p>\n
Tumblers, or mixers, are services that attempt to anonymize cryptocurrency transactions by mixing received crypto with coins from other users and services. The mixer will then take a commission from the received cryptocurrency and send the rest to another wallet address owned by the threat actor, hoping to evade law enforcement.<\/p>\n
In 2021, a significant 25% of all cryptocurrency stolen from DeFi platforms wasreturned to the victimsafter some time, serving as an atypical white-hat hacking exercise.<\/p>\n
So far this year, no funds stolen from DeFi platforms have been returned, so the threat actors werent interested in making security statements but money.<\/p>\n
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\nCryptocurrency DeFi platforms are now more targeted than ever - BleepingComputer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"