- The FBI has detailed various DeFi hacks and exploits faced by the cryptocurrency industry over the past year
- Due diligence has been urged to ensure investors understand protocols and verify code audits have taken place
Criminals are ramping up efforts to exploit DeFi (decentralized finance) vulnerabilities to steal crypto, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned.
The agency said it has noticed a rise in smart contract hacks and is urging investors who’ve fallen victim to related theft to reach out.
“Cyber criminals seek to take advantage of investors’ increased interest in cryptocurrencies, as well as the complexity of cross-chain functionality and open source nature of DeFi platforms,” the agency said in a izjava.
More than $1.8 billion in digital assets were ukraden from DeFi protocols in this year’s first quarter alone — an almost eightfold increase from 2021’s equivalent period.
The FBI made note of several attack vectors specific to DeFi protocols in the last 12 months, including flash loans, token bridges and oracle price pairs.
Indeed, token bridges in particular have been major targets this year. Harmony’s cross-chain Horizon Bridge was hacked for $100 million in June while Ronin Network, the Ethereum-linked sidechain for blockchain game Axie Infinity, lost a whopping $625 million three months earlier — the crypto industry’s largest exploit to date.
Source: https://blockworks.co/fbi-issues-warning-over-defi-exploits-open-source-development/