November witnessed a series of alarming hack attacks and fraud incidents in the cryptocurrency sector, leading to the highest financial loss of the year. The report from blockchain security company CertiK reveals an alarming trend of increasing threats in the crypto sector.
According to CertiK, one of the biggest crypto hacks in November targeted the cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex, resulting in a theft of approximately $131.4 million. The attack is believed to have been carried out by the North Korean hacker group Lazarus, who sophisticatedly obtained the private keys.
In another major hack attack targeting Justin Sun’s HTX and Heco bridges, over $100 million was withdrawn from two hot wallets. The third significant hack was a flash loan attack on decentralized cryptocurrency exchange KyberSwap, where approximately $45 million was drained from their liquidity pools, revealing new methods employed by hackers in the crypto sector.
A phishing scammer stole $27 million from a single victim, while Kronos Research suffered a loss of $25 million due to the compromise of their API keys. The total losses for November amounted to a surprising total of $316.4 million from direct hacks, $45.5 million from flash loan attacks, and $1.1 million from rug pull scams.
The affected platforms reported actively launching comprehensive investigations and increasing security measures throughout the month. The industry not only faces these urgent concerns but also confronts the challenge of anticipating and countering the evolving tactics of cybercriminals.