North Korea Hackers’ Illicit Gains Dwindled in 2023 Despite More Attacks – Chainalysis
Blockchain analytics and security firm Chainalysis has reported a decrease in cryptocurrency theft in 2023.
Sharing its insights in a blog post, the firm disclosed that the crypto market witnessed a collective loss of $1.7 billion. This marks a significant 54.3% reduction from the $3.7 billion pilfered by malicious actors in 2022.
Funds stolen from crypto platforms in 2023 fell 54.3% to $1.7 billion. This is mostly due to a drop in DeFi hacking, which drove the increase in stolen crypto that we saw in 2021 and 2022. However, there still were several large DeFi hacks in 2023. pic.twitter.com/s8Ix982HR2
— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) January 24, 2024
Despite the drop in fiat value, Chainalysis highlighted a surge in crypto-focused attacks, with individual hacking incidents increasing from 219 in 2022 to 231 in 2023.
However, while the overall number of cryptocurrency hacks rose in 2023, the number of decentralized finance (DeFi) attack incidents specifically dipped by 17.2%.
The report also explored the role North Korea-backed hackers like the Lazarus Group and Kimsuky played in the crypto industry. Chainalysis stated that these cyber fraud groups collectively stole $1 billion in 2023, compared to $1.7 billion in 2022.
Nonetheless, the number of crypto platform hacks stood at a significant figure of 20 – the highest number on record attributed to the anonymous team.
The cyberattack groups stole $428.8 million from DeFi platforms, $150 million from centralized crypto service operators, and $330.9 million from crypto exchanges.
Additionally, crypto wallet service providers lost $127 million to North Korea-backed hackers.
Further data disclosed by Chainalysis revealed that DeFi platform hacks fell by more than 63% in 2023, with only $1.1
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