Beosin: Web3 Incurs $2.02 Billion Loss in 2023 from Hacking, Phishing, and Project Rug Pulls

According to Beosin's EagleEye platform monitoring, as of December 25th, the total losses incurred in the Web3 domain in 2023 due to hacker attacks, phishing scams, and project Rug Pulls amounted to $2.02 billion. Among these, there were 191 reported attack incidents, resulting in a total loss of approximately $1.397 billion; 267 Rug Pull incidents by project parties led to a loss of around $388 million; and the total loss from phishing scams amounted to about $238 million.

In 2023, there was a significant decline in hacker attacks, phishing scams, and project Rug Pull incidents compared to 2022, with an overall reduction of 53.9% in the total amount of losses. Notably, hacker attack incidents saw the most substantial reduction, dropping from $3.6 billion in 2022 to $1.397 billion in 2023, a decrease of approximately 61.2%. Phishing scam losses decreased by 33.2% compared to 2022, while Rug Pull losses declined by 8.8%.

There were four attack incidents in 2023 that incurred losses exceeding $100 million, and 17 incidents incurred losses between $10 million and $100 million. The top 10 security incidents accounted for approximately $1 billion, constituting 71.5% of the total yearly attack incident amount.

In 2023, the types of projects targeted in attacks were more diverse compared to 2022, including DeFi, CEX, DEX, public chains, cross-chain bridges, wallets, payment platforms, gambling platforms, crypto brokers, infrastructure, password managers, development tools, MEV bots, and TG bots. DeFi was the most targeted in terms of attack frequency and loss amount, with 130 DeFi attacks resulting in a loss of approximately $408 million.

There was an increased frequency of attack incidents across various types of public chains in 2023, with multiple security events involving theft across multiple chains. Ethereum remained the public chain with the highest loss amount, with 71 attacks on Ethereum causing losses of $766 million, accounting for 54.9% of the total annual losses.

Regarding attack methods, 30 incidents of private key leaks resulted in a loss of approximately $627 million, accounting for 44.9% of the total losses, representing the most significant cause of losses. Contract vulnerability exploitation was the most frequent attack method, accounting for 99 out of 191 attack incidents, representing 51.8%.

Approximately $295 million of stolen funds were recovered throughout the year, accounting for around 21.1%, a significant increase compared to 2022. Around $330 million of stolen funds were transferred into mixer services, constituting 23.6% of the total stolen funds.

Unlike the significant decrease in on-chain hacker attacks, phishing scams, and Rug Pull amounts, there was a substantial increase in off-chain crypto-related crimes in 2023. The global crypto industry witnessed an astounding $65.688 billion in crime-related amounts, marking an approximate 377% increase from $13.76 billion in 2022. The top three types of crimes in terms of amounts involved were online gambling, money laundering, and fraud.