The number of cryptocurrency exploits in the second quarter of 2023 increased by 65.3% compared to the same period last year.. It increased from 49 to 81 incidents, according to a new report from software company Immunefi. In addition, there was an 11% increase in accidents compared to the previous quarter.

However, despite the rise in attacks, the total amount of cash lost decreased by 60.4% compared to the second quarter of 2022. Losses amounted to $265,481,519. So far this year, the ecosystem has seen a total loss of over $702 million.

More encryption exploits, but fewer losses

Immunefi, a bug bounty platform, evaluated all exploits and rug checkouts to determine what losses were incurred this quarter. that it a report He shows that, as in other periods, the quarter was dominated by a few major exploits.

In this case, the penetration of Atomic Wallet and Fintoch accounted for 49.6% of the total losses in the second quarter. It represented $131,600,000 in lost funds.

In the case of Atomic Wallet, a decentralized non-freedom platform, $100 million worth of tokens were stolen by the North Korean organization Lazarus Group on June 3.

On May 23rd, Fintoch pulled out the rug and banned users from their own funds. In total, $31.6 million was taken and transferred to other blockchains, including Tron (TRX) and Ethereum (ETH).

In the second quarter of 2023, hacks continued to be the leading cause of losses accounting for 83.1% of all incidents. Compared to scams, scams and rug withdrawals, which amounted to only 16.9% of the total losses.

BNB Chain and Ethereum accounted for more than half (76.5%) of chain losses in Q2 2023. Arbitrum ranked third, with 10 incidents, accounting for 12.1% of all cross-chain losses.

Projects must be refocused on security

“Despite the increase in the number of attacks, individual losses per attack were generally lower,” Mitchell Amador, founder and CEO of Immunefi, told BeInCrypto.

“One successful hack of a key protocol can put a huge amount of money at risk, resulting in a large amount of total losses. However, we have not seen as many reports of such large-scale breaches as we have seen in the previous period where Only the first three total losses 372 million dollarsAmador added.

However, the bear market and tighter budgets have shifted priorities within Web3 projects, causing security concerns to be less important.

“This shift can lead to an effective security suite that is defective or non-existent,” Amador stated.

“Aspects like auditing the code, setting up a bug bounty program, and creating an in-house security team may take a backseat to other pressing concerns. (Meanwhile) the black khat community continues to grow and operate from a position of greater strength.”