The cryptocurrency industry continues to grapple with major cybersecurity challenges, as demonstrated by losses amounting to $88.47 million in October 2024 alone.
This makes it the second-lowest month for losses in 2024, following April, which recorded $60.19 million in damages, according to cybersecurity firm PeckShieldAlert, reports Cryptopolitan.
Notable Cryptocurrency Attacks in October
Radiant Capital experienced the most significant breach of the month, marking its second major hack this year. The platform previously lost $4.5 million to a flash loan exploit.
In the recent attack, however, a staggering $53 million was siphoned from users’ wallets. Radiant Capital attributed this substantial loss to sophisticated malware that targeted developers’ hardware wallets.
U.S. Government Seizure Fund was also compromised, losing $2 million when funds were transferred from an official government wallet to an unidentified address.
Blockchain research firm Arkham Intelligence flagged this suspicious movement, which saw the attacker later return approximately $19.3 million.
EigenLayer Protocol, built on Ethereum, reported a $5.7 million exploit on October 4. The stolen funds were laundered through the HitBTC and Bybit exchanges.
The project pointed to “unapproved selling activity” as the source of the issue and launched an investigation into the wallet linked to the exploit.
Key Attacks Involving Private Key Compromises and Social Engineering
The Tapioca Foundation faced a significant loss after attackers compromised a token vesting contract, allowing them to mint USDO tokens and drain $3 million from a Uniswap liquidity pool.
Although Tapioca DAO managed to recover 1,000 ETH (approximately $2.7 million), the net loss remained substantial.
Sunray Finance also fell victim to a private key breach, resulting in a $2.86 million loss.
The attacker used a malicious smart contract upgrade on the Arbitrum blockchain to mint an extraordinary 200 trillion SUN tokens, which were then swapped for USDT.
A Year of Alarming Losses
These incidents add to the worrying trend of cybersecurity threats faced by the crypto industry in 2024, which has seen losses totalling $1.4 billion due to hacks and fraud.
The scale of these breaches highlights the urgent need for enhanced security measures and robust defence mechanisms to protect both platforms and investors in the volatile digital asset landscape.
