Orbit Chain

2024

Gamma

One of the issues that have always plagued the burgeoning crypto industry is hacks and exploits. To cap off a memorable January of 2024, reports emerged yesterday that Ripple Executive Chairman, Chris Larsen suffered a $112 million exploit in his personal account.&nbsp;
That was in addition to the series of exploits that had already taken place in the first month of the year already. Going by media-reported hacks and exploits, Technext estimates that the total sum lost due to hacks and exploits in the crypto industry in January 2024 is $210.7 million.
According to researchers at security app, De.Fi, crypto users <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/12/27/crypto-users-lost-2b-to-hacks-scams-and-exploits-in-2023-defi-says/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">lost</a> nearly $2 billion to scams, rug pulls and hacks in 2023,&nbsp; a sign that the industry remains susceptible to security risks.
<h4 id="ripple-chairman-hack" data-beyondwords-marker="b637bcb1-7dde-47d4-b5f9-18f5792fbf01">Ripple Chairman hack&nbsp;</h4>
Ripple co-founder and Chairman Chris Larsen <a href="https://x.com/chrislarsensf/status/1752702297971532258?s=46&amp;t=jqcaUeCNyLKSkEd-Vi7PKg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">confirmed</a> yesterday, which was the last day of January, that his personal crypto accounts had been hacked.&nbsp;
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The news which was first <a href="https://x.com/zachxbt/status/1752694489905528943?s=46&amp;t=jqcaUeCNyLKSkEd-Vi7PKg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">reported</a> by crypto analyst ZachXBT initially claimed that the company itself had been hacked. But according to Larsen who took to X (Twitter) to clarify:
“Yesterday, there was unauthorized access to a few of my personal XRP accounts (not @Ripple) — we were quickly able to catch the problem and notify exchanges to freeze the affected addresses. Law enforcement is already involved.”
Although he didn’t confirm the amount, ZachXBT said the breach netted 213 million XRP worth about $112.5 million as of the time the exploit took place.&nbsp; 
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The funds were reportedly siphoned and then the perpetrator(s) attempted to launder the XRP through at least six different exchanges. <a href="https://x.com/chrislarsensf/status/1752742706462523882?s=46&amp;t=jqcaUeCNyLKSkEd-Vi7PKg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">According</a> to Larsen, law enforcement is now involved and has frozen accounts related to the breach. It is however unclear whether the funds remain in exchange custody and no other information has been provided.
Importantly, it looks like Ripple accounts were not affected. This means that XRP-holder funds are safe in what stands as the largest crypto-related hacks of 2024 so far.
<h4 id="earlier-exploits-in-january-2024" data-beyondwords-marker="cea1dc3d-6a38-45d8-8140-bfec60d193c4">Earlier exploits in January 2024</h4>
On January 2, South Korea’s Orbit Chain lost over $80 million due to a hack linked to compromised multi-sig signers. The breach involved various cryptos which included stablecoins ether, wrapped btc.
The following day after Orbit Chain, Radiant Capital, a cross-chain lending platform suspended lending and borrowing on the Arbitrum network after its newly introduced USDC market suffered a flash loan attack. The attack, occurring seconds after the market’s launch, exploited the codebase, leading to a $4.5 million loss.&nbsp;
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On January 8, Gamma Strategies, a DeFiprotocol, suffered a $3.4 million loss due to a vulnerability in its accounting mechanism. The exploited vulnerability involved the attacker withdrawing more than 1500 ETH by exploiting a high price change threshold in LST and stablecoin vaults.&nbsp;
On the same day as Gamma Strategies, CoinsPaid, an Estonia-based digital asset processor, experienced a $7.5 million hack, its second in six months. The breach involved unauthorized withdrawals of USDT, Ether, USD Coin, and CPD tokens.
Exactly a week after Gamma Strategies and CoinsPaid exploits, Socket Tech was exploited. The breach which impacted several Web3 applications happened on January 16. The attack focused on Bungee Exchange, a component of Socket Protocol bridging Ethereum and 12 EVM chains, resulting in a $3.3 million loss. The hacker exploited a flaw in Socket’s gateway, allowing unauthorised fund transfers from users who granted it unlimited access.&nbsp;
Although the exact amount lost was not disclosed, on January 22, Concentric.fi experienced a “serious” security breach through a targeted social engineering attack. The attacker compromised a deployer wallet, which allowed them to exploit the protocol.&nbsp;
This brings the total known amount lost to exploits and hacks in the global crypto space in January 2024 to $210.7 million.
<h4 id="hacks-in-the-crypto-space" data-beyondwords-marker="961933d0-80da-431d-9581-7835e70fbef4">Hacks in the crypto space&nbsp;</h4>
At least theoretically, the crypto space in 2024 is expected to grow and develop as an asset class, with the developments of spot ETFs in the first quarter of the year.&nbsp; 
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 <figure class="aligncenter size-full" data-beyondwords-marker="094fc96d-7f1b-42fc-b249-26018bd19500"><img width="800" height="400" src="https://technext24.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Hacker.jpg" alt="Mixin Network suspends operations following $200m hack, the largest in 2023&nbsp;" class="wp-image-194363">
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Now, this series of unfortunate incidents in the first month of the year has set a concerning tone for the year ahead, highlighting the persistent vulnerabilities within the crypto sphere.
Recall that the cryptocurrency ecosystem has long been a target for hackers due to its inherent vulnerabilities. One can only hope that the industry actively addresses these challenges and implements proactive security measures.

Global crypto community lost at least $210 million to hacks in January 2024

Technext.ng

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