Crypto losses spike 1,100% in April with 5th-largest-ever hack: CertiK

Crypto losses spiked by 1,163% over April, with the lion’s share of lost crypto coming from a single heist of an elderly US individual’s wallet, says blockchain security firm CertiK.

CertiK said in an April 30 X post that a total of $364 million was lost to exploits, hacks and scams in April, jumping from the $28.8 million recorded by CertiK in March. 

The firm added that white hat exploiters had returned around $18.2 million from exploits on the crypto protocols KiloEx, Loopscale and ZKsync, which brought down the month’s total.

The largest hack in April, and the fifth largest to date, involved an elderly US individual who lost 3,520 Bitcoin (BTC), valued at $330.7 million. The Bitcoin was stolen from their wallet after a hacker used advanced social engineering tactics to gain access on April 30.

Excluding that attack, April’s crypto losses were $34 million, a 21% jump from March.

CertiK said phishing scams, bolstered by the Bitcoin heist, was the main culprits for losses while social engineering, access control hacks and price manipulation exploits rounded out the top four types of attacks that stole the most value.

February still has the most significant number of crypto losses for the year so far, with $1.53 billion. Most of that was from the $1.4 billion Bybit hack by North Korea’s Lazarus Group, which also holds the crown for the largest crypto hack ever.

Hackers return some funds

Over $18 million was returned for the month. Decentralized exchange KiloEx suspended platform operations after suffering a $7.5 million exploit; however, on April 15, the exploiter returned all the stolen funds, only four days after the attack.

The ZKsync Association also recovered $5 million worth of stolen tokens from an April 15 security incident involving its airdrop distribution contract.

Related: Crypto hackers hit DeFi for $92M in April as attacks double from March

Meanwhile, DeFi protocol Loopscale recovered half of the funds stolen during a major exploit on April 26, when manipulating its RateX PT token pricing functions led to the theft of $5.7 million in USDC (USDC) and 1,200 Solana (SOL).

Losses to crypto scams, exploits and hacks were declining in the final days of 2024, with December registering the smallest amount stolen at $28.6 million, compared to $63.8 million in November and $115.8 million in October.

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