- More than 25 crypto hacks in December 2024 with the total loss of $24.69 million, which is 70% less than in November.
- LastPass lost $12.38 million in December which makes this the largest crypto breach of the month.
- Of the 2024 crypto hacks, 78% were on access control vulnerabilities, which shows that attack tactics are changing.
In December 2024, the number of cryptocurrency hacks reduced to over 25 with a total loss of $24.69 million. As per the blockchain security firm PeckShield, more than 70% of this loss can be traced back to November alone. Even though the decline is positive for the crypto industry, the further losses underscore the risks that remain in the digital asset market.
December’s Major Crypto Losses
The biggest incident that was reported in December was LastPass and it was a huge blow, LastPass lost $12.38 million. Others that were also affected include Yei Finance, GemPad, and FEG, which all lost $2.2 million. Another entity, Victim, claimed losses of $1.3 million. Although these losses are significant, the general decline in monthly digital assets thefts is the trend to watch.
The platform report also showed the total monthly losses decreasing from the previous months especially during the first quarter of the year 2024. Hacks were most prominent in April, with $574.65 million being stolen, and the lowest in December, when only $24.69 million were stolen. This marked decrease indicates that the measures being taken to increase the security in the crypto space are slowly being effective.
Changing Crypto Hack Tactics
Though the losses decreased the stolen funds were still moving through different routes. Platform observed more than 550 Ethereum tokens, alongside a large amount of Circle’s stablecoin and Bitcoin, being transferred through services like ChangeNOW. Also, 310 ETH and 520 USDC was identified to have been transferred to the wallets associated with the sanctioned mixer Tornado cash. These movements prove that the task of identifying and retrieving funds remains a complex process within the highly distributed digital assets environment.
According to Web3 security company Hacken, crypto hacks in 2024 led to $2.99 billion in losses, equal to the sum for the whole of 2023. However, there was a change in the patterns of attack as was clearly seen. In particular, 78% of the losses were linked to attacks that targeted access control issues, which underlined the changing approach that hackers are taking. These flaws impacted almost every industry, from DeFi and CeX to gaming and metaverse projects.
The current situation of crypto community shows more emphasis on stronger security measures to be adopted. Although the losses in December have begun to decline, the current threats show that thecryoto sphere requires further enhanced protection and prevention measures.
