In the first 3 months of the year, 119 million dollars of crypto money was stolen

The rapid growth in the decentralized finance and blockchain ecosystem has not gone unnoticed by cyber attackers. The balance sheet of crypto money thefts in the first quarter of 2023 has been revealed in a new report. According to the report by Crystal Blockchain, cyber attackers made 19 breaches in the first quarter of 2023, and a total of $119 million worth of cryptocurrencies were stolen in these breaches.

Didem Gülyuva, Gate.io Turkey Business Development Director, shared her assessments on the subject and said, “Confidence in the cryptocurrency ecosystem has been shaken by the negativities experienced in 2022 and the news of violations one after the other. The continuation of similar events in the first quarter of 2023 makes secure crypto money platforms critical for investors. As Gate.io, we offer an end-to-end trusting crypto trading and investment experience to our more than 12 million users in 224 countries.”

$1 MILLION NFT STOLEN IN ONE ATTACK

The report revealed that in the largest phishing attack ever this year, the breach of NFT collector Kevin Rose’s personal NFT wallet in late January resulted in a loss of nearly $1 million. On the other hand, the total amount stolen in 199 different cyber security breaches last year was $4.17 billion.

Didem Gülyuva said that as the crypto ecosystem is adopted by more people, malicious attackers try different methods to get a share from this expansion, and said, “This can sometimes be an organized manipulation or sometimes a simple phishing attack. On the other hand, hacker groups can attack NFT marketplaces, new DeFi projects, and security-poor cryptocurrency exchanges. Cryptocurrency investors who do not want to lose in a possible cyber attack should pay special attention to security when choosing a trading and crypto trading platform.

DECENTRALIZED EXCHANGE EXCHANGES 13X MORE ATTACKED

The report also showed that the attacks mostly target decentralized protocols. Decentralized finance protocols were hacked 13 times more often than centralized exchanges in 2022. The largest DeFi breach of the first quarter of 2023 was identified as the attack on the Bonq DAO in February. The Bonq DAO attack was followed by a breach of the Platypus Finance protocol. Didem Gülyuva stated that the discussions regarding centralized exchanges and autonomous organizations within the decentralized finance sector continue, “In any case, centralized exchanges offer a safer environment in the eyes of individual investors with the belief that they can find an interlocutor. As Gate.io, we use the trading system we developed and strengthen our platform with third-party cloud security defense services. We make Gate.io infrastructure immune to cyber attack threats with Transport Layer Security (TLS), Anti-DDOS Attack, Web Application Firewall (WAF) and DNS security focused protection systems. We also reduce the risks of internal threats with our internal protection and access restriction policies.”

“WE SEEK BUILDING TRUST IN CRYPTO AS OUR DUTY”

Didem Gülyuva underlined that in addition to platform security, they also strengthen account security with the solutions they offer to users, and concluded her evaluations with the following statements:

“We can monitor IP addresses and detect suspicious movements on our platform, which is logged in with SMS verification. We use multiple technical tools such as cloud data risk control in our hot wallets, and we get services from industry giants for protection processes. Our cold wallets have not been exposed to any danger so far. We offer end-to-end protection at every step from account management to withdrawal/deposit transactions, and we see it as our duty to build trust in the crypto money ecosystem. Gate.io, which lists more than 1,400 cryptocurrencies and hosts a transaction volume of close to 5 billion dollars every day, is used safely by more than 12 million registered users around the world with its crypto currency trading platform and NFT marketplace.