Crypto Funds Worth $336.3 Million Stolen in Q1, $98.8 Million Recovered from March Hacks: PeckShield
PeckShield, a web3 cybersecurity firm, has revealed that approximately $100 million in stolen cryptocurrency funds from hacking incidents in March have been successfully returned to their rightful owners. Despite initial losses totaling millions of dollars, 52.8% of the hacked funds have been recovered.
The majority of the recovered funds came from the Munchables incident, where the hacker returned the stolen cryptocurrency after negotiations.
PeckShield’s report shows a decline in crypto hacks in March compared to February, but the figures still exceed those of January. In March, there were over 30 hacks resulting in $187.29 million in losses, with $98.8 million recovered. This marks a decrease of 48% from February, when hackers stole over $360 million.
The Munchables hack was the most significant incident in terms of losses, followed by the Curio hack, the Prisma Finance breach, the NFPrompt hack, and the WOOFi exploit.
Most of the recovered funds were from the Munchables incident, a non-fungible token game on the Blast network. The project disclosed on March 26 that it had been exploited, with initial losses estimated at $62 million. However, the hacker returned the funds without any ransom demands.
The Prisma Finance incident, involving approximately $11 million in stolen digital assets, may also see a chance of recovery. After the hack on March 28, the decentralized finance protocol froze its platform for investigation. The hacker later claimed it was a “white hat rescue,” and negotiations between the protocol and the hacker are currently underway.
Other notable incidents include the breach of Curio’s MakerDAO-based smart contract, resulting in estimated losses of $40 million, and unauthorized access to the Binance-backed platform NFPrompt, resulting in $10 million in losses. The WooFi decentralized exchange suffered losses of approximately $8.5 million.
In total, the first quarter of 2024 saw approximately $336.3 million lost to hacking and fraudulent activities, a decrease from $437.5 million in 2023. There were 46 hacking incidents and 15 cases of fraudulent activities during this period.
The most significant attack in the quarter targeted the cross-chain bridge protocol Orbit Bridge, resulting in $81.7 million in losses. Ethereum was the most targeted blockchain, followed by the BNB Chain, with both networks accounting for 73% of the total losses.
Overall, $73.9 million (22%) of the stolen funds from seven exploits in Q1 were successfully retrieved. The number of attacks decreased by 17.6% compared to Q1 2023.
Hacking incidents accounted for 95.6% ($321.6 million) of the losses, while fraudulent activities, scams, and rug pulls made up 4.4% ($14.7 million).
It is important to note that the information provided in this article is accurate as of the last update on April 1, 2024.
