$3.78 Billion Lost in 303 Hacks: SlowMist Releases Report on 2022 Blockchain Attacks

SlowMist, a top-tier cybersecurity and AML team, shared its annual report on the attacks, hacks and other security incidents in the Web3 segment. It looks like 2022 witnessed a record-breaking number of scams on major smart contracts platforms.

303 hacks, billions laundered, 376 stablecoin addresses frozen: SlowMist 2022 report is out

According to the SlowMist 2022 Annual Blockchain Security and AML Analysis Report, last year, 303 incidents in the sphere of blockchain security took place, which signals 28.3% increase compared to 2021 numbers. Aggregated losses in these attacks eclipsed $3.77 billion, which «does not take into account assets lost due to market instability,» analysts highlighted.

?Exciting news!

The SlowMist 2022 Annual Blockchain Security and AML Analysis Report is here!

Our comprehensive report provides valuable insights and analysis on the latest trends and developments in #blockchain security and #AML.

Let’s dive in?https://t.co/HJpY9yqmIl

— SlowMist (@SlowMist_Team) January 9, 2023

The team calculated the losses based on assets’ prices on the date of accidents. The biggest increase in the number of losses was registered in the DeFi, cross-chain and NFT segments. BNB Smart Chain (BSC) was the primary target of attackers: 79 accidents of various types happened there.

SlowMist calculated the number of cryptocurrency accounts blocked by major centralized stablecoin issuers Tether Limited and Circle. Two heavyweights blocked 250 and 126 addresses on Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, respectively.

Despite the arrest of Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev, blockchain mixers witnessed a huge spike in popularity in 2022. Per the report, a total of 1,233,129 ETH was deposited to Tornado Cash, while over 40,000 Bitcoins (BTC) were laundered through ChipMixer.

Phishing, rug pulls and scams were on fire in 2022

Cross-chain bridges suffered painful losses in 2022: in just four attacks (against Ronin, Wormhole, Nomad and Harmony bridges), almost $1.2 billion was stolen by hackers. In total, 16 attacks on cross-chain systems were registered; 32% of all annual losses should be attributed to the cross-chain segment.

Scammers in crypto are getting more and more dangerous: 31.6% of incidents in Web3 should be attributed to scam campaigns, rug pulls and phishing events. In 30.3% of cases, attackers exploited DeFi contract vulnerabiliies.

SlowMist registered 56 incidents in the NFT segment; almost 40% of them were associated with phishing attacks, while 21% were caused by «rug pulls.»

Source