Syed Rahman, crypto specialist at financial crime lawyers
Rahman Ravelli, considers the latest statistics.
Last year was the biggest year for crypto hacking, with $3.8
billion stolen from
cryptocurrency businesses.
A report by blockchain analysts Chainalysis shows that 2022
continued the previous year's trend of decentralised finance
(DeFi) being the target most attractive to hackers.
Attacks on DeFi protocols (the set of codes that govern how
digital assets are used on a blockchain network) accounted for
82.1% of all cryptocurrency stolen by hackers – a total of
$3.1 billion. This was up from the 2021 DeFi figure of 73.3%.
Of the $3.1 billion, 64% came from cross-chain bridge protocols.
These enable users to move their cryptocurrency from one blockchain
to another. This is usually achieved by locking the user's
assets into a smart contract on the original chain and then minting
equivalent assets on the second chain.
