October ‘the biggest month for hacks’ – and it’s not even finished yet: Chainalysis
11:18, 13 October 2022
Blockchain data platform Chainalysis has called October 2022 the “biggest month in the biggest year for hacking” – despite only being halfway through the month.
In a Twitter post, the blockchain data platform said that $718m (£640m) has been stolen so far during October from decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols across 11 different hacks.
The firm also believes that 2022 will surpass 2021 as the biggest year for crypto hacking. Thus far this year has seen $3bn (£2.6bn) stolen across 125 hacks, while 2021 saw just over $3bn hacked.
Chainalysis also noted a shift from hacks on centralised exchanges to decentralised exchanges. In 2019 “most hacks targeted central exchanges” while the “vast majority” targeted are now DeFi protocols.
The blockchain data platform noted that cross-chain bridges “remain a major target for hackers”. Three bridges were breached in October with almost $6m (£5.3m) stolen.
However, on the same day as Chainalysis released this information, bitgert (BRISE) revealed that a hacker attempted to expose “an apparent vulnerability in the back end of its bridge”.
Bitgert managed to respond to this immediately and “damage has been kept to an absolute minimum”. The crypto said “funds are safe, the breach has been terminated”.
1/ After four hacks yesterday, October is now the biggest month in the biggest year ever for hacking activity, with more than half the month still to go. So far this month, $718 million has been stolen from #DeFi protocols across 11 different hacks. pic.twitter.com/emz36f6gpK
— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) October 12, 2022
MNGO token falls after $100m Mango Market exploit
On 11 October Mango Markets, a lending protocol on the Solana (SOL) blockchain, was the victim of a $100m (£89m) hack that has seen its MNGO token drop. This hack was included in the Chainalysis statistics.
According to CoinMarketCap, Mango Markets token, MNGO is down by 18% to $0.02271.
Two accounts funded with USD Coin (USDC) took out an outsized position in the MNGO and perpetual protocol (PERP) pairing. This manipulated the protocol’s oracles, allowing the attackers to max out their accounts and walk away with a net value of $100m.
Recently, the hacker posted a proposal on Mango Markets’ governance platform saying the funds would be returned if the protocol uses $70m (£62m) of the stolen cash to pay off bad debt.
This refers to a Solana investor who had to be bailed out after they accumulated more than $200m (£178m) in debt across multiple lending platforms. It was feared that if the investor’s position were liquidated it would send shockwaves through the market.
Thus far, more than 33 million have voted in favour of the hacker’s proposal, with just over 21,000 voting ‘no’. A total of 66 million votes are needed to pass the proposal.
Mango Markets had previously tweeted its intention to communicate with the hackers and find an amicable solution, and provided an email for the hacker to send to and discuss a bug bounty.
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