Crypto Turbulence: September 2023

In 2023, the month of September brought with it a disheartening turn of events for the cryptocurrency sphere, firmly cementing its position as the most turbulent month of the year thus far. A staggering $329.8 million in cryptocurrency funds were illicitly siphoned off during this tumultuous period.

The blockchain security firm CertiK, in its report on October 2nd, highlighted a significant blow to the monthly figures, emanating from the audacious attack on the Mixin Network, which transpired on September 23rd. In this breach, the Hong Kong-based decentralized cross-chain transfer protocol suffered a staggering loss of $200 million due to a breach in their cloud service provider.

#CertiKStatsAlert ????

Combining all the incidents in September we’ve confirmed ~$332M lost to exploits, hacks and scams.

Exit scams were ~$1.9M

Flash loans were ~$0.4M

Exploits were ~$329.8M

See more details below ???? pic.twitter.com/DMFN9LWU8V

— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) September 30, 2023

Amidst the various significant events that unfolded during the month, two breaches that stood out were the ones at the CoinEx exchange and Stake.com. These security breaches resulted in considerable losses, amounting to $53 million and $41 million, respectively.

Unveiling the culprits behind these attacks,  disclosed the involvement of the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking collective. Furthermore, the latest statistics from Dune Analytics revealed that this group currently holds crypto assets amounting to a substantial $45.6 million.

These orchestrated attacks have propelled the aggregate crypto losses from exploits for the year to a staggering $925.4 million. Interestingly, July emerged as the second-highest month for exploit losses, during which a significant sum of $285.8 million was illicitly siphoned off.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that the month of September bore witness to additional financial losses, including $1.9 million due to exit scams, $400,000 due to flash loan attacks, and an extra $25 million due to phishing attacks, as meticulously documented by CertiK.

When considering the cumulative perspective, the losses incurred in 2023 from various exploits, scams, and hacks have now surged to an eye-watering sum of $1.34 billion.

Adding another layer of insight, Beosin, a notable blockchain security firm, contributed its findings, indicating that the total losses resulting from hacks, phishing scams, and exit scams fell just below the awe-inspiring figure of $890 million for the third quarter of 2023.

Remarkably, the losses sustained during Q3 have eclipsed the combined sum of losses from the initial two quarters of the year. To elaborate, the losses amounted to $330 million in Q1 and $333 million in Q2, as outlined in the comprehensive report by Beosin released last week.

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