Certik Tags Sept. the Worst Month for Crypto-Related Exploits

• More crypto exploits have happened in September than in any month of 2023.
• Certik estimates the industry lost hundreds of millions of dollars in that month.
• Year-to-date totals have surpassed a billion.

The crypto industry lost hundreds of millions of dollars to cybersecurity incidents last month, making September the worst month for crypto-related exploits in 2023 so far, according to blockchain security firm Certik.

In a recent post shared on 𝕏 (Twitter), Certik affirmed that the industry lost a whopping $332 million to exploits, hacks , and scams, with one incident contributing to over half of the total stolen funds.

Mixin Network Attack on the Spotlight

Per the Twitter update, September crypto exploits accounted for $329.8 million in losses, while flash loans and exit scams represented $0.4 million and  $1.9 million in stolen funds, respectively.

Combining all the incidents of the month, Mixin Network emerged as the biggest contributor to September totals, following a $200 million exploit on its cloud database service provider on September 25.

While Mixin downplayed the incident as “more optimistic than expected” in one of its updates on Twitter, the protocol proposed a $20 million bug bounty to recover part of the stolen funds from the attackers, who are believed to be in control of 93% of Mixin’s USDT, among other digital assets.

Other major incidents in the month of September included the $53.1 million exploit on CoinEX, the $41 million attack on Stake.com, and a $24.2 million phishing attack. Cumulatively, these incidents, among others, bring the yearly total of crypto assets lost to hackers to over a billion.

2023 Q3 Losses Raise Eyebrows

As Certik quantifies the year-to-date (YTD) crypto exploits to be $1.34 billion, blockchain security firm Beosin recently noted that total losses emanating from hacks, exit scams, and phishing scams reached $889.26 million during Q3 alone.

Simply put, 2023 Q3 losses exceeded the combined sum of the first two quarters of the year (Q1-$330M, Q2-$333M).

Read more about the recent Nansen breach:
Nansen Breach Sees User Data Compromised: Here’s What Happened

Stay updated on how Balancer protocol lost thousands of dollars in a DNS attack:
Balancer Protocol Loses $238K in Crypto in Ongoing DNS Attack