According to research by cybersecurity firm Immunefi, the number of attacks on the cryptocurrency industry has risen by 192% YoY from 25 to 73 this past quarter, though the total amount of money lost has fallen by 64.4%, likely due to market conditions.

Immunefi assessed losses caused by flaws in contracts or those caused by human behavior, such as fraud. Key findings from the report reveal that the BNB Chain was the primary target for exploits and scams, with 73.3% of all rug pulls analysed occurring on the BNB Chain.

The report notes that BNB Chain still suffers from a serious issue with developers using forked code, lacking a security-first approach, and attracting users looking for a quick way to earn money, all of which lead to an increased number of exploits and rug pulls. The predominant cause of losses were hacks, accounting for 95.7%, while fraud, scams, and rug pulls amounted to only 4.3%.

The report highlights that projects have increased their security measures through audits and bug bounties in the past year, but black hats have also been educating themselves on industry practices and improving their skills, leading to a spike in successful hacks and rug pulls.

Immunefi suggests that in a bear market, black hats are able to take advantage of projects that start deprioritising security in favour of other budget items, whereas developers have to be right in every step of the development process.

(By Ryan S. Gladwin)