In 2024, hacker attacks caused significant damage to the crypto market, amounting to $1.94 billion, according to Global Ledger. The primary targets of the attackers were centralized exchanges (CEX) and centralized financial services (CeFi).
This is reported by Business • Media
Increase in Losses in 2025
In the first two months of 2025, losses from hacker attacks approached $1.89 billion, nearly matching the total losses for all of 2024. In 2024, there were 265 recorded incidents, while in just the first two months of 2025, there have already been 15 attacks that resulted in significant financial losses.
According to research data, centralized exchanges suffered the largest losses in 2024, losing approximately $794.98 million. The losses were primarily due to attacks exploiting vulnerabilities in hot wallets. Hacker attacks on decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms resulted in losses of $491 million.
Analysis of Causes and Methods of Attacks
The main cause of the attacks was the compromise of private keys, leading to losses totaling $930 million. The next significant cause was the exploitation of vulnerabilities in smart contracts, which caused an additional $369.8 million in losses.
“Hacker groups supported by North Korea are suspected of stealing at least $659.7 million through five major attacks that made it into the top twenty crypto incidents of 2024,” the report states.
Additionally, experts noted a sharp surge in hacker activity in 2025, linked to the record breach of the Bybit exchange, which resulted in losses of $1.46 billion. This attack was attributed to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus.
It is worth mentioning that analysts at Hacken summarized record losses in the Web3 sector amounting to $1.98 billion due to hacker attacks in the first quarter of 2025.
According to the Google Threat Intelligence Group, hackers from North Korea are using a scheme to impersonate IT specialists working remotely to gain access to corporate data of companies in Europe, steal it, and demand ransom.