Is Losing Almost $40 Million to Crypto Hacks in the First Month a Troublesome Start to the Year?

The crypto community is already experiencing significant losses to security incidents in this new year. Quantstamp, a Web 3 security platform, has concluded that $38.9 million has been lost so far in January 2024. Let’s take a closer look at five of the largest smart contract hacks that have occurred.

Gamma Strategies, a protocol for active liquidity management and market-making strategies on Ethereum, was hacked for $3.4 million on January 4. The attacker created malicious contracts and executed transactions, stealing funds and converting them to $ETH to avoid detection. The attacker currently possesses 1535 ETH, equivalent to $3.4 million.

Radiant Capital, a cross-chain lending protocol, temporarily suspended its lending and borrowing markets on Arbitrum after discovering a $4.5 million exploit. This attack was described as a flash loan attack that took advantage of a rounding issue in the codebase. By manipulating the index parameter, the attacker was able to profit through repeated deposit() and withdraw() operations.

Socket Protocol, a blockchain interoperability protocol, reported a security breach resulting in over $3.3 million in losses. The vulnerability in user input validation allowed attackers to exploit wallets that had granted infinite approvals to Socket contracts. Over 200 wallets were affected, with a combined loss exceeding $3.3 million. The team has released a recovery plan and promised 100% reimbursements to affected users.

Wise Lending, a Web3 lending application and yield aggregator, fell victim to a flash loan attack, resulting in a loss of approximately $464,000. The exploit was due to a flaw in Wise Lending’s shared accounting logic, which allowed the platform’s funds to be drained.

Goledo Finance, operating on Conflux eSpace, experienced a significant security breach in its lending and borrowing market, resulting in a loss of $1.7 million. The company has suspended the lending pool and is in negotiations with the individual responsible for the hack. The team has also released a reimbursement plan.

While the start of the year has been marked by significant losses, the crypto community hopes for smoother operations for all platforms in the rest of the year. Efforts are being made by centralized services and security agencies to strengthen crypto security.