In a virtual heist of unprecedented scale, hackers stole crypto currency worth more than 610 million US dollars from Poly Network, a platform connecting various separate blockchains to make transactions easier. Even though the culprits reportedly returned almost half of what they stole, this hack still sits at the top of the all-time largest crypto thefts.
As evidenced by our chart, this has been the first theft of this proportion since 2018, while smaller hacks in high single and low double digit numbers are occurring every year. The attack was made public on Tuesday, with 258 million arriving back at three crypto addresses designated by Poly Network on Wednesday. Not much is known about the individuals behind it yet, although researchers at Chinese cyber security firm Slowmist have allegedly already secured the corresponding IP addresses and device IDs.
According to cyber security researchers at Ciphertrace, 2020 saw losses of 516 million US dollar due to hacks and thefts, while roughly 1.4 billion US dollars have been lost due to fraudulent activities. As big as these numbers might seem, they’re an improvement compared to 2019, in which crypto crime amounted to 4.5 billion US dollars in losses. Due to its decentralized nature and many crypto coin exchanges lacking proper safety nets, users often have to rely on the goodwill of the platforms to get their money back.
This chart shows the largest known crypto currency thefts by estimated losses (in million U.S. Dollars).
