$3 billion has been lost to DeFi hacks so far this year

More than $760 million were stolen from 53 DeFi protocols last month, bringing the total amount lost to hacks to $3 billion so far this year. 

Security firm Peckshield has revealed that losses from hacks in the cryptocurrency space have reached $3 billion since the start of the year.

According to the recent report, October is the month with the highest number of DeFi exploits, with 53 protocols losing funds to hackers.

#PeckShieldAlert ~44 exploits (53 protocols affected) grabbed ~$760.2M in Oct. 2022, and ~$100M already returned the exploited protocols (Total loss: $657.2M)
As of October 2022, the stolen funds (~$3B) in 2022 “doubled” last year’s loss pic.twitter.com/mKZAjVk7UU

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) October 31, 2022

The 53 protocols lost a combined $760 million to attackers in the last 31 days, the security firm added. However, roughly $100 million of the funds have been returned to the protocols. 

The $3 billion lost due to hacks so far this year is already double what was experienced last year, with two months remaining before the end of 2022. 

There were various causes for the losses experienced last month. Some of them include wallets compromised by a profanity hack, insecure smart contract code, exploited cross-chain bridges, oracle price manipulation, and unaccounted-for game theory behind protocol functionality.

BNB Chain was the most popular protocol that was hacked last month. However, Binance executed a hard fork to restore security on the platform after an unknown attacker stole $100 million via a flaw in BNB Chain’s cross-chain bridge

Mango Markets, a Solana-based crypto lender, also lost $100 million to a hack. The attacker,  Avraham Eisenburg, claimed actions behind the hack were legal. After a community hack, an agreement was struck, and Eisenburg returned $67 million to the protocol and held on to the rest.

Crypto market maker WinterMute, recorded one of the biggest losses last month, losing $160 million to the attacker(s). However, CEO Evgeny Gaevoy shrugged off the loss, adding that the firm was solvent, with more than double that amount in equity. 

Hackers also stole $15.8 million from Team Finance, taking advantage of a bug in the Version 2 to Version 3 migration on the protocol.