According to a report by Immunefi, between July and September 2023, cryptocurrency companies faced 34 incidents of hacks and fraud, resulting in losses totaling more than $413 million. Overall, the losses for the first nine months of 2023 amounted to $1.34 billion, a 3.9% decrease compared to the same period last year. Compared to the previous quarter, losses were down by 28%, and compared to the previous year, they decreased by 40%.

Major Hacks and Targeted Networks

The largest incidents involved WazirX, which lost $235 million, and BingX, which lost $52 million, together accounting for 69.5% of all losses during the period. The breakdown by month shows $281.9 million in losses in July, $15.1 million in August, and $115.9 million in September. 99.25% of the damage came from hacking incidents, while fraud accounted for the remaining 0.75%.

Targeted Networks

The primary networks targeted by hackers were Ethereum and BNB Chain, with 15 and 8 incidents respectively, making up 44.1% and 23.5% of the total losses.

Vulnerability of CeFi Projects

Experts from Immunefi emphasized that CeFi projects remain the most profitable targets for hackers, despite a lower number of attacks compared to DeFi. In the third quarter, three attacks on CeFi resulted in $309 million in losses, while DeFi suffered 31 attacks with losses amounting to $104 million.

“The main issue with CeFi is the management of private keys, which often lacks security audits. This requires strict policies, practices, and contingency plans,” the report states.

Low Rate of Recovery

The affected projects were able to recover only $14.9 million, or about 3.6% of the stolen funds. In most cases, the value of the native tokens of the attacked projects fell over the course of six months following the incidents, causing prolonged negative impacts on their market valuation.