According to blockchain security companies, the recent hack attack targeting Orbit Chain’s inter-chain bridge, Orbit Bridge, in December 2023, escalated the value of stolen cryptocurrencies to $100 million. The largest hack attacks of 2023 were recorded in September and November.
Orbit Bridge Hack Puts December 2023 in the Spotlight
Blockchain security company PeckShield announced on January 1st that the $81.5 million inter-chain bridge hack attack on Orbit Bridge made December the fifth month with the highest losses in 2023. This hack was also the ninth-largest attack targeting an inter-chain bridge in the last three years.
Orbit Bridge is an inter-chain protocol bridging service of Orbit Chain, which was launched in South Korea in 2018 and confirmed to have been attacked due to unauthorized access to its ecosystem at 23:52 local time on December 31st.
As known, the Orbit Chain team announced on January 1st that they requested major global cryptocurrency exchanges to freeze the stolen assets. The statement said, “We are in close contact with law enforcement and are diligently working to track and freeze the stolen assets.”
Crypto Sector Lost Millions to Hackers in 2023
According to estimates by blockchain security companies PeckShield, CertiK, and Beosin, a total of $1.51 billion to $2 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen in 2023 due to hacks, fraud, rug-pulls, and other reasons. PeckShield’s data indicates that September and November were particularly devastating months, with hack attacks in just these two months stealing over $700 million in cryptocurrency.
The largest hack in September was the attack on Mixin Network, which resulted in the theft of over $200 million in cryptocurrency. In November, the largest hacks were the attacks on Poloniex and HTX / Heco Bridge, with losses of $131.4 million and $113.3 million, respectively. Other significant hacks of the year included the theft of $197 million from Euler Finance in March and $125 million from Multichain in July.
Blockchain security company Beosin noted a significant decrease in hack attacks, phishing scams, and rug-pull type attacks compared to 2022, with total losses dropping by approximately $2.38 billion. Accordingly, losses from hack attacks fell from $3.6 billion in 2022 to $1.4 billion in 2023, a drop of about 61.2%.
