Hackers attack cryptocurrency ecosystems, $700m stolen in three months

The emerging Web 3 space has been prone to hackers, with multiple cryptocurrency blockchains having millions of dollars stolen from them in just the first three months of 2022.

A new report from Atlas VPN reveals that hackers have stolen nearly $700 million in cryptocurrency assets from crypto blockchains such as the Binance Smart Chain, Solana blockchain, and Ethereum. More specifically, the stolen funds were accrued over 72 attacks within the first three months of the year. Furthermore, the Solana network had nearly $400 million stolen over four hacks, with Binance's network having $100 million stolen over 12 hacks.

"An attacker exploited a signature verification vulnerability in the network to mint 120K Wormhole-wrapped ether on Solana, worth about $334 million," Atlas VPN said.

Attackers' highest target to steal funds was NFTs. The report states that NFT attacks were the highest, netting thieves nearly $49 million. Additionally, hackers used phishing scams through Discord to steal users' NFTs. "With the rise of new crypto ecosystems, cybercriminals get more targets they can exploit. In addition, the surging NFT trend attracted even more scammers to the industry," wrote Atlas VPN.

Notably, the Ethereum network was hacked 16 times in just 2022 and reportedly lost $25 million. For more information on this story, check out this link here.