De.Fi, a leading antivirus and app provider, has reported that cryptocurrency promoters and investors lose over $452 million to hackers and scammers in the first quarter of this year, representing a 65.23% decline from the loss recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2022.
The report by the app provider indicated that the loss still highlighted the increasing need for awareness creation in the cryptocurrency space and proved that efforts to secure crypto investors with protective apps and technologies were yielding desired results as the loss in Q1, 2023 was lower than the $1.3 billion loss in Q1 2022.
The report further showed that out of the $452 million lost in Q1 this year, $215 million was lost in just the first 20 days of March, reflecting the intensified efforts of hackers to harm traders, even as only $130 million or 28.7% was recovered in Q1 2023 compared to the $520 million recovered in Q1 2022 from the $1.3 billion loss.
According to the firm, the biggest losses in the quarter under review were associated with Flash Loan issues, which have been raising concerns about their growing havocs as over $200 million was lost through the channel in Q1 this year.
On the frequency of attacks and havocs, De.Fi reported that smart contract exploits were the most frequent used by criminals in 17 instances, followed by the rug pull and flash loan attact with eight and six cases respectively.
Also, while the Ethereum chain recorded the highest losses totalling $216 million in the quarter under review, BNB Smart Chain remained very popular among crypto criminals as 18 cases were recorded from it in the quarter compared to 10 on EHT and & on Arbitrum.
De.FI listed the five top hacks during the quarter under review as including Euler Finance, a prominent Ethereum-based noncustodial lending protocol, with $196 million loss recorded in March; and BonqDAO, BonqDAO and AllianceBlock, two blockchain-based platforms, which suffered $120 million loss due to vulnerability in the BonqDAO smart contract.
Others include CoinDeal , which through fraudulent operations reportedly raised over $45 million through the sale of unregistered securities thereby causing unsuspecting retail investors to lose their funds; MonkeyDrainer, a phishing group which specialized in providing phishing smart contracts and stole $16.5 million from investors before ceasing operations; and Platypus Finance, an automated market maker (AMM) offering stable swap opportunities, which stole $8.5 million in stablecoins from investors.
