The crypto market has just witnessed its worst month in 2023 in terms of exploits, with criminals carting away assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars through various attacks.
Blockchain security firm CertiK revealed in a tweet that bad actors stole approximately $363 million across more than 14 incidents.
Combining all the incidents in November we've confirmed ~$363M lost to exploits, hacks and scams
This makes November the most damaging month this year
Exit scams were ~$1.1M
Flash loans were ~$45.5M
Exploits were ~$316.4M
See more details below 👇 pic.twitter.com/QoDy6d8IJH
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) November 30, 2023
Crypto Bad Actors Stole $363M in November
Exploits alone led to $316.4 million in losses. The largest was the theft of over $131 million from hot wallets of the U.S.-based crypto exchange Poloniex on November 10. The hacker stole more than 175 different tokens with valuations exceeding $10,000 and running into millions. Some of the stolen assets include Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), and Shiba Inu (SHIB).
Another major exploit was a security breach on crypto exchange HTX (formerly Huobi) and cross-chain Heco Bridge, which led to the loss of $30 million and $86.6 million in assets, respectively.
In addition, a market participant lost $27 million to phishing scammers, Taipei-based trading, market-making, and venture capital firm Kronos Research lost $25 million, and another phishing victim lost $3.2 million.
Flash loan attacks accounted for $45.5 million in losses for November, with the decentralized finance platform Kyber Network getting hacked for roughly $45 million. Interestingly, the attacker has demanded complete control of the network as a condition to return the stolen funds. Other incidents recorded losses of tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Most Damaging Month in 2023
Furthermore, exit scams resulted in fewer losses, with market participants losing approximately $1.1 million to criminals.
On a year-to-date basis, exploits have led to $1.2 billion in losses, flash loan attacks have caused the loss of $309 million in crypto assets, and exit scams have resulted in $146 million being stolen. The crypto market has lost more than $1.7 billion to hackers and scammers.
November's loss of $363 million exceeds that of September, which had a record of $332 million. Nevertheless, September still tops losses made through exploits at $329 million. While Q3 2023 is the worst-hit period for the industry, it remains to be seen how much will be lost in Q4.