Immunefi Raises Alarm On Scams As Fraudsters Steal Double In Q2 2024

Immunefi, a company that helps protect blockchain technology, just released a report. The report shows that scammers took much more cryptocurrency in the second quarter of 2024 than last year. They stole over $572 million worth of digital money during that time. In the second quarter of 2023, scammers took $220 million. The report revealed that most of the money lost came from centralized exchanges.

Scammers Boost Fraudulent Operations In Q2 2024

At the beginning of this year, fewer scams were happening. Immunefi reported that the rate of scams decreased by 23 percent during that time. The new report shows that fewer fraudulent activities occurred from April to May. Towards the end of May and June, people lost more money to scammers.

The most significant loss in the second quarter was on May 31, when hackers stole $305 million worth of Bitcoin from the crypto exchange DMM by accessing its private keys. In June, another $55 million was lost from the BtcTurk hack.

Individuals or entities who had invested money in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) projects or platforms experienced a combined loss of $171 million over the quarter, a 25% reduction from last year.

Centralized Finance saw about $401 million in losses in the quarter, making up 70% of the reported losses. Only a few attacks against these targets were successful compared to the total number. There were only five successful attacks on centralized protocols, while there were 62 incidents where decentralized protocols were successfully exploited or scammed.

Immunefi Raises Awareness About Security Vulnerabilities In Crypto Infrastructure

However, there is some proof that Ethereum layer two networks are becoming more popular with bad actors. Arbitrum was the third most targeted network, facing four attacks and accounting for 5.5% of the total losses. Optimism and Blast each had three incidents. All other networks had no more than one incident each, making up 15% of the total losses.

In the report, Immunefi founder Mitchell Amador stated that this quarter’s losses are a reminder of how important it is to keep centralized exchange systems secure.

Moreover, this quarter shows that infrastructure breaches can cause the worst hacks in crypto, with one breach leading to millions in losses. This was clear during this quarter when losses increased mainly due to hacks targeting centralized finance systems, surpassing decentralized Finance, even though there were fewer hacks in that sector. Amador noted that solid measures to protect the whole ecosystem are essential.

In the second quarter, security experts recovered some of the stolen funds. For instance, the person who hacked the Gala Games protocol returned almost all the money. Reports revealed that the hacker accessed their wallet without a VPN, revealing their IP address and possibly making them vulnerable to legal action, though this was never verified.

Immunefi reported that Yolo Games, Bloom, and Alex Labs managed to retrieve most of the money they lost due to hacks. The report claims that these recovered funds made up 5% of the total losses in the quarter.