January’s 5 biggest crypto hacks earn criminals $39m

Nearly $50 million was stolen from web3 platforms in the year’s first month as crypto remains engaged in a cyber war with hackers and scammers. 

Quantstamp, a defi security startup, reported five smart contract protocols with the highest losses from exploits and hackers in January. The five platforms lost $38.9 million to a basket of attack vectors deployed by bad actors.

Four days into the year, Gamma Strategies was rocked by a flash loan attack. The code bug allowed exploiters to drain $6.1 million from Gamma’s public-facing vaults. Gamma shut off deposits to resolve the issue, effectively closing the loophole. 

Although less than $10 million was stolen, roughly $500,000 denominated in Ether (ETH) was at risk during the incident.

Radiant Capital lost $4.5 million to an empty market exploit on Jan. 3, hours before the attack on Gamma. According to Peckshield, the root cause was not novel and stemmed from a brief period where new markets were activated on lending protocols. 

The defi lender paused its Arbitrum-based USDC pool to address the issue. Radiant also noted that user funds were not exposed, and the protocol resumed operations following an investigation. 

On Jan. 16, the multi-chain protocol Socket was breached via a user verification input vulnerability. The compromise allowed hackers to siphon almost 2,000 ETH worth over $4 million. However, Socket has since recovered 1,032 ETH, worth around $2.3 million. All affected users were also reimbursed as part of Socket’s plan to make users whole.