Blockchain losses over $13.6 billion due to hacker attacks

[Daltonik]

A study of the Atlas VPN service says that the blockchain industry has lost $13.6 billion since 2012 due to hacker attacks.



According to the researchers, 330 such attacks were carried out, and attackers preferred decentralized applications (dapps) on the EOS blockchain — 117 successful attacks. The total amount of damage was about $28.2 million.

In the Ethereum ecosystem, 33 attacks on dapps were recorded, which brought attackers $364 million. Cryptocurrency exchanges have been subjected to 87 successful attacks-the damage from them reached $4.8 billion.
Digital asset storage services faced 36 attacks, with losses totaling $7.19 billion. Over eight years, hackers earned $45.8 million from 28 blockchain hacks.



From January to June 2019, the blockchain industry was subjected to 94 successful hacker attacks. In the first half of 2020, this figure fell to 31.



The full report is available here: https://atlasvpn.com/blog/blockchain-hackers-have-stolen-over-13-6-billion-in-330-hack-events

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[jackg]

Is the $13.6bn based on current time or the time. The coins were stolen? I think a lot of funds were lost in the mtgox "hack" and the binance "hack".

Most exchanges have been hit with hacks of currencies by now so I don't think it's surprising do many have been stolen..

(PS also the current title makes it look like blockchain.com and not the blockchain industry).

[Ridcan]

330 attacks are too many.  As Bitcoin becomes more valuable, such attacks may increase.  The security network should be constantly renewed against such hacking attacks.  Especially stock exchange sites should improve themselves in terms of security.  should devote a significant amount to the defense part.  Thanks for informations.

[bL4nkcode]

"Blockchain hack" sounds like including those blockchain related companies? and does it mean that the particular cryptocurrency "blockchain" has been hacked?
Why don't just use "cryptocurrency hack" its more understandable since the study mainly talking to the "money" that was hacked/lost.

[pixie85]

Blockchain industry? is there even such a thing?

Money lost? Is there even a loss when coins change hands? When you unlawfully take a coin from one user you don't make the industry lose money. You make the user lose money, but you are another user who gains money. Everything remains in balance.

I feel like OP is saying that car industry has lost money due to privately owned cars being stolen. The industry doesn't care if a thief steals a car somewhere. The car will be sold on the market and someone else will keep on driving it.

[bitbunnny]

Hackers are always after something valuable and Bitcoin is not exception. And it's still easier and less risky to still Bitcoin than fiat money and it's much harder to trace it.
Hackers attacks are increasing and we might expect this trend to continue especially if Bitcoin value will rise and exchanges are especially vulnerable.

[Welsh]

Common tactic; Brand multiple industries under one name; in this instance the Blockchain, and make it sound like the Blockchain is inherently insecure trying to influence the market. I understand clickbait gets traffic, but its one of the reasons I tend to avoid the news as much as possible these days.  

Blockchain industry? is there even such a thing?

Money lost? Is there even a loss when coins change hands? When you unlawfully take a coin from one user you don't make the industry lose money. You make the user lose money, but you are another user who gains money. Everything remains in balance.

I feel like OP is saying that car industry has lost money due to privately owned cars being stolen. The industry doesn't care if a thief steals a car somewhere. The car will be sold on the market and someone else will keep on driving it.

Not really, unless you classify anything that uses a "Blockchain" which would be a huge market. This would involve games, gambling sites, exchanges, basically everything including alternate coins.

Its not a loss for the currency, and therefore the majority are unaffected, except for temporary changes in the price due to the news impact. Although, I do get your point with the car industry example, I would argue that we should care if there are large amounts of thefts happening within the cryptocurrency market. Although, I would like to add that Bitcoin; has much less thefts than traditional currencies, even if you compare it on a ratio basis. This might be due to the "infancy" of Bitcoin, but its quite apparent that the alternate coins industry is far more vulnerable to shady practices, even from the developers themselves.

[Yaunfitda]

Title is misleading to me, reading it, I thought it was "https://www.blockchain.com/" who was hacked today. But it seems it was the crypto market after all, specially Ethereum and the rest of those weak altcoin code who can be exploited by any hackers or group of hackers. And the source of the article as well is a clickbait, at it is not a well known crypto blogs.

[batang_bitcoin]

I'm thinking that it's more of crypto related hacks than "blockchain" hacks. Although it's understandable that these dapps, exchanges and other crypto related companies are using blockchain.
This hack article can even be more interesting if they have included and compared it to the lost money in the banks including, fraudulent schemes and also hacking through phishing and other methods made by robbers.

[Viscore]

Title is misleading to me, reading it, I thought it was "https://www.blockchain.com/" who was hacked today.

That is also what I thought on the topic but while reading the OP's post, it is different. And I thought also that it is all about crypto.

Anyway, many companies are now using blockchain technology that $13.6 billion is really and probably not just only the total amount that hackers had taken out from the community.

If these activities won't stop, then it has to think that scammers will live forever. Because of those numbers, I believe that the authorities are taking actions already to minimize or even to stop it but unfortunately, the number of cases is increasing, it simply means that they are hard to eliminate these scammers.

[daarul50]

Title is misleading to me, reading it, I thought it was "https://www.blockchain.com/" who was hacked today.

That is also what I thought on the topic but while reading the OP's post, it is different. And I thought also that it is all about crypto.

Anyway, many companies are now using blockchain technology that $13.6 billion is really and probably not just only the total amount that hackers had taken out from the community.

If these activities won't stop, then it has to think that scammers will live forever. Because of those numbers, I believe that the authorities are taking actions already to minimize or even to stop it but unfortunately, the number of cases is increasing, it simply means that they are hard to eliminate these scammers.

No matter what , you will always found there is bad guy at the other side
The hacker attack will live forever , we will see another attempt to steal crypto either it is from personal wallet or exchange wallet, it is cannot be stopped but only prevented.
Bitcoin and any other crypto is the perfect object to stole , it has no physical , the law enforcer mostly dumb about this thing and it is just pretty easy to claim once the hack operation has been done.
If i had that ability , i will just turn it to a white hat rather the black hat.

[Alucard1]

That was a big loss for every company that has been hacked, 330 attacks are such a great number of attacks and it tells how hackers can make it possible, they are so much knowledge about technology and hacking system, so that, they are called blackhat hacker because of wrongdoings, well, in fact, they should have a great work and god income if they use that knowledge in good things or become a white hat hacker, many big companies needed a good security information analyst to protect their data and to avoid such hacking.

[btc_angela]

Most probably the amount could be bigger, I reckon. But very good trick here, include blockchain + hack in the title of your article = clickbait revenues. So this industry will continue to suffer hacks if the people behind are not very careful of their codes on dapps. It's easy to write a code and deploy it, but without any third party audit or even testing before releasing it to production, there could be hackers looking at the code and trying to find out some loopholes and weaknesses.

[Lorence.xD]

With this kind of stories, most developers who are trying to develop cryptocurrency will have to keep this one in mind because if your code has a tiny bit of weakness, expect that attacks will be launched. The only way that this hackers get away with this is that they know that crypto does not track their digital footprint, and even if tracked it will be a vague clue. In my opinion, if this stolen amounts are used by the hackers, it will just slowly come back into circulation. Possible solution for this is to make crypto a little less private which defeats its purpose but the safety will be guaranteed.

[joniboini]

The categorization is a bit weird imo. Exchange hacks do not necessarily mean somebody is hijacking the blockchain, but due to the faulty security practices and so on. This title-bait article is really getting annoying and misleading for someone who don't know much about the topic.

[tbct_mt2]

Losses from wallets are biggest but can you give more details on which wallets cause the biggest losses?

In the article, they wrote about blockchain wallets but no clear details. Years ago, Electrum wallet has a big hole that was abused but is the Electrum wallet contributed the most to losses from wallet?

Electrum vulnerability allows arbitrary messages, phishing

[hatshepsut93]

What an absolute dumpsterfire of an article, banding together unrelated concepts just to create an image of some "blockchain industry". No wonder the provided statistics are completely misguiding and useless. And when the chart says "hack target - blockchain" or "hack target - wallet" - what does it even mean? Does phishing count as wallet hacking or not? And why the number of incidents is so low pre-2018? I don't believe that there was only a few hacks back then.

[AmoreJaz]

What an absolute dumpsterfire of an article, banding together unrelated concepts just to create an image of some "blockchain industry". No wonder the provided statistics are completely misguiding and useless. And when the chart says "hack target - blockchain" or "hack target - wallet" - what does it even mean? Does phishing count as wallet hacking or not? And why the number of incidents is so low pre-2018? I don't believe that there was only a few hacks back then.

we can't verify the figures presented on the graphs. so maybe just approximate values but dont treat them as valid numbers or reference. the study of this ATLAS VPN team may not be complete. just rough estimate of what happened with those hacks related to blockchain industry.
 and the bad thing here is - the media may use those graphs to present to the public that blockchain is really not safe and secure because of those billion dollar losses. they will make a story and will give negative impact to those noncrypto users.

[MCobian]

Since cryptocurrencies became popular as a digital asset and Bitcoin prices became more expensive, hackers began to target exchanges
to steal coins. Eventually there were many exchanges that got hacked, this made some exchanges have to close down their businesses
and made the blockchain industry look bad. Therefore, with the many exchanges that are attacked by hackers, should increase awareness of
all of us in order to better protect the coins we have. Use the security features in our wallet and most importantly don't store all the coins
we have on exchanges.

[7788bitcoin]

and the bad thing here is - the media may use those graphs to present to the public that blockchain is really not safe and secure because of those billion dollar losses. they will make a story and will give negative impact to those noncrypto users.

The world has changed and if any media will use fake news it will be ousted and social media is active if they present something that is not accurate. For anyone who read about bitcoin and blockchain will understand the facts and people who are not aware of these important details, they care less as they have nothing to do with the cryptocurrency space nor interested about it .