CeritK: Pros and Cons to be Taken Away From the Crypto Fraud Landscape in 2024

Blockchain and DeFi cybersecurity platform, CertiK has published its latest findings on the cryptocurrency fraud space, revealing that 2024 was both cause for concern and reason to be optimistic. While $2,339,075,289.45 was lost, this was still significantly less than the figures seen in 2021 and 2022.

In its latest Hack3d report, CertiK examined the industry’s vulnerabilities and assessed its resilience. It revealed that phishing had the biggest imprint on the web3 landscape and it wasn’t even close. The total amount of access control (38), exit scams (91), price manipulation (33) and private key compromise incidents (65) combined was still short of the total amount of phishing scams seen in 2024, with 296 counts.

However, while phishing still accounted for the largest amount of crypto funds lost in 2024 ($1.1billion), $855.4million was lost to private key compromises, revealing that to be the most costly form of incident individually on average (£13.6million). Nonetheless, three phishing attacks across the year each saw over $100,000 lost.

In total, 2024 saw just over $2.3billion lost across 760 incidents, revealing a 31.61 per cent year-on-year increase in the value of crypto lost. Q3 was especially costly as $753million was lost across 157 incidents.

The Hack3d report also analysed some of the biggest attacks seen across the year, spotlighting the $231million breach faced by WazirX, the Indian crypto exchange. On 18 July 2024, WazirX experienced a cyber attack on one of its multisig wallets. This wallet was managed using Liminal’s digital asset custody and wallet infrastructure. This attack broke into the top 20 largest incidents since 2021.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Despite the large number of attacks, and increase from 2023, there are still a few positives that can be taken from the CertiK report. The total number of attacks and incidents faced decreased year-on-year by 29, indicating that organisations are taking steps to improve their cybersecurity measures and combat fraud.

The report also identifies the role governments play in ensuring a safe crypto landscape. As well as noting the importance of Donald Trump’s re-election on the crypto sphere (we will have to wait for a few months to pass in 2025 to see how impactful his crypto developments), the report says: “Additional regulatory developments in 2024 have showcased the diverse approaches governments are taking toward crypto adoption.

“For instance, the European Union advanced its Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA), creating a unified crypto framework across member states. MiCA’s requirements for transparency, liquidity, and consumer safeguards aim to foster innovation while ensuring crypto market integrity.”

Despite CertiK revealing Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong have not broadened their crypto regulations as much as other countries, the crypto exchange revealed the positive impact it had in Hong Kong by providing two stablecoin proposals to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and Hong Kong’s Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB), both of which were approved.