Stats by CertiK found that in December, $62.2M was lost to crypto hacks. The last month of the year marked the lowest monthly figure in 2022.
The platform confirmed that the year-to-date losses surpassed $3.76B.
Biggest Crypto Hacks of December
According to the platform, the Helio Protocol breach was the biggest event of the previous month, with a $15M loss. The Helio Protocol created HAY, a “destablecoin” that leverages BNB as collateral. The asset with excessive collateral asserts a 7% yield.
The attacker exploited the Ankr Protocol by changing Ankr Reward Bearing Staked BNB (aBNBc) into hBNB and staked it in Helio Protocol. Then, they lent millions in BHAY0 in return for HAY0. HAY depegged to $0.40 following the exploit but has since regained its peg to the dollar following a repurchase and burn from the development team.
The second largest incident of December was Defrost Finance’s loss of over $12M to an alleged flash loan attack. The hacker reportedly hacked Defrost’s V1 protocol to siphon $173,000. In a more serious V2 assault, a perpetrator liquidated users’ holdings using a phony collateral token and a fraudulent pricing oracle, stealing $12.9 million.
BitKeep, Ankr, and Lodestar hacks, among other breaches, were the month’s highlights. As per CertiK, exit scams led to losses of $15.5M. Meanwhile, flash loans roughly siphoned $7.6M; a decrease witnessed in H2 2022. April had lost a massive amount of $300.5M in similar exploits, with the…
