In the turbulent year that cryptocurrencies have had this year, other threads than market volatility have not been sleeping on their laurels, too. According to an official press release by Atlas VPN, the data shows that we have seen a record rise in cybercrime this year.
The official statistics claim that $1.97 billion from 175 crypto projects have been stolen so far this year, which signifies a major upswing in cyber-attack activity.
The biggest victim of these attacks was the Ethereum network, which is understandable, as the majority of crypto projects function on this network. All-in-all, the network suffered 32 attacks. Among them, the largest crypto hack in history took place, the attack on the Ronin sidechain that cost the network over $600,000.
Furthermore, the statistics show that the number of cyberattacks has nearly doubled since last year, or rose 94%. In particular, in the first half of 2021, we witnessed 90 of these attacks, and in 2022 it was 175. Split into quarters, Q1 of 2022 recorded 79 attacks, which is 108% more than Q1 2021, and Q2 of 2022 endured 96 incidents, which was 85% more than Q2 2021.
The second quarter of 2022 has been the worst so far, with a record of 37 incidents in the month of May. The country with the most cyberattacks was South Korea with a total number of 15, closely followed by the USA with 14 cases.
Despite the gloomy statistics, there is a lighter side to this digital coin. The increasing amount of crypto hacks also means that the interest in digital assets is still rising. Moreover, each of these cyberattacks teaches us a little more about the security and various vulnerabilities of crypto networks, which will further propel their development.
