DeFi
Ethereum DeFi projects remain hackers’ favorite target, but stolen funds down 28% in May: Immunefi
Hackers failed to exploit a major centralized entity in May, while DeFi protocols saw a decrease in losses from hacks and fraud, according to a report from bug bounty platform Immunefi.
$52.4 million was stolen from DeFi investors in May due to hacks and fraud. This represents a 12% decrease in the amount lost compared to the same period the previous year. Additionally, this is a sharp drop of 28% compared to April of this year.
In total, there were 21 incidents involving investors losing funds across all channels tracked by Immunefi. Ethereum was the most targeted blockchain, followed by BNB Chain. The networks witnessed 9 incidents and 4 incidents respectively.
Additionally, even though the frauds accounted for 7 incidents, the monetary loss amounted to $1.8 million. This is a small loss compared to the $50.6 million lost to hackers.
According to the report, the vast majority of losses recorded in May were due to $240 million exploit of Gala Games and SonneFinance hacked for 20 million dollars.
Notably, Gala Games managed to recover the value of ETH $22 million from the exploiter, but not before he managed to sell 600,000 GALA tokens on Uniswap.
In a blog post, Gala Games said it used the profits to buy back and burn the GALA tokens created by the exploit. Since the product did not remove all of the tokens that the hackers had managed to sell, the team had to conduct an additional token burn where the remaining tokens that had been released into circulation were burned at the end. using tokens from the GALA wallet.
Additionally, the team said it has discovered the identity of the exploiter and is working with law enforcement to take appropriate legal action.
Earlier this week, Ryan Salame, a former FTX executive, was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison for cheating FTX clients.
On April 18, Avraham Eisenberg, the man behind the $110 million Mango Markets exploit, was sentenced on all counts of commodity fraud, commodity manipulation and wire fraud.
The decrease in losses caused by malicious actors is an encouraging sign that the Wild West era of crypto may be coming to an end, with strict legal action playing a key role in the recent development.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.