Q1 2024 Crypto Hack Overview: Trends, Losses, and Recovery Efforts

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The crypto market began rocky in 2024, with Q1 recording many on-chain security cases that threatened the cryptocurrency ecosystem’s integrity and stability. Various details illustrate this period’s widespread influence, outcomes, and trends. This brief comprehensive report will give a comparative overview of the hacks, a monthly breakdown, etc. 

Read on!

Comparative overview

Comparing the figures to the same period in 2023 reveals a stark reality: the total financial losses of $502,522,934 in Q1 2024 represented an alarming increase of 54% compared to the money lost in the same quarter of the previous year. While the percentage of losses went down by 3.8% relative to Q4 2023, the trend is still upward. This makes the crypto community worried about this situation.

Month-wise breakdown

January was the worst month in terms of the quarter’s finances, carrying all the expenses for on-chain security incidents. A total of 193,132,537 was stolen through 78 cases during that quarter, which is tantamount to a negative outlook for the rest of the quarter. 

Month	Amount lost in $	Incidents
January	193,132,537	78
February	160,385,286	59
March	149,005,111	86

The next months witnessed ups and downs, but the common denominator in these incidents was substantial during the quarter.

Primary attack vector

Private key compromises were the most common attack vector during Q1 2024. Although they constituted only 11.7% of all security incidents, they contributed to almost half the financial losses totaling $239,037,879. 

Type of attacks	Amount lost in $	No. of incidents
Access control	78,684,261	15
Code vulnerability	42,572,893	47
Exit scams	68,314,135	34
Flash loan attack	37,703,331	30
Phishing attacks	64,019,052	83
Private key compromise	239,037,879	26
Others	229,461	2

This shows that a strong defense system is needed to protect the master keys used as the gates of the users’ digital assets.

Analysis by blockchain networks

Ethereum, a well-known blockchain platform, was the victim of the most security attacks during the quarter. There were 131 hacks, frauds, and exploits on the Ethereum network, leading to a cumulative loss of $139 million. 

Chain	Amount lost in $	Incidents
Arbitrum	24,857,993	13
Avalanche	443,700	2
Base	1,176,995	3
Blast	68,080,000	3
BNB chain	26,351,558	36
Ethereum	139,837,142	131
Multiple chains	97,319,983	15
Optimism	927,190	2
Other	25,441,494	7
Polygon	730,948	3
Ripple	112,500,000	1
Solana	4,855,931	7

The very broadly spread and multi-purpose Ethereum platform makes it a promising target for malicious actors seeking to exploit vulnerabilities in the ecosystem. Arbitrum and multiple chain networks followed it.

Recovery efforts

Although the data of stolen crypto was horrifying, efforts were made to recover the lost funds. In the end, over $77,970,073 was successfully recovered and returned to those who had been defrauded by the crooks, which offered the same people a necessary glint of hope. 

However, most of the recovered funds came from the Munchables hack, where the hacker returned all the stolen crypto through successful negotiation, which was possible through everybody’s team effort in the ecosystem at the very end. 

Major exploits and losses

One of the most eminent losses was those from two particular hacks, OrbitBridge and Munchables, which together accounted for $144,480,000, taking up large portions of the total losses in Q1 2024. 

Orbit Bridge, the bridging protocol of the Orbit Chain cross-chain project, was exploited on January 1, 2024, in an $81 million attack. 

On the other hand, Munchables, an NFT game on the Ethereum layer 2 system called Blast was exploited on the 26th of March losing full access to its contract that enabled the withdrawal of the game’s assets worth a staggering $62M.

Conclusion:

The report on the on-chain security incident outcomes for Q1 2024 has shown that cryptocurrency security is still weak regarding stability and security. Meanwhile, the number of financial losses is a thriller, but this is also evidence of the necessity for strong security measures and strategies to defend digital properties. 

With the crypto market ecosystem advancing daily, stakeholders must remain vigilant and commit to collaboration whenever threats and vulnerabilities appear.