By Nermeen Nabil Khear 
In 2024, cryptocurrencies faced over 410 security breaches, causing losses of $2.013 billion, with DeFi being the hardest hit. These incidents show the urgent need for better security, stricter rules, and more trust in digital assets.
2024 was a year for cryptocurrency, big security issues and scam projects have shown that the system needs improvement. According to SlowMist Hacked, there have been 410 security incidents reported in 2024, where huge losses account for $2.013 billion.
According to SlowMist report, 2024’s losses, however, stand at 19.02% lower than in 2023, where a total of 464 incidents took place and left a loss of $2.486 billion.
Major Security attack incidents of 2024
DeFi was the most vulnerable area with 82.68% of breaches. There were 339 DeFi cases, which resulted in a huge loss of $1.029 billion. This is 33.12% more than the 2023 version, which was $773 million.
It shows how attractive decentralized finance has become for hackers due to weak security and flaws in smart contracts. The greatest loss was seen for Ethereum with $465 million loss.
Binance Smart Chain, or BSC, followed second with the loss of $87.35 million. On May 31, some of the worst hacks occurred at the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DMM Bitcoin.
There, hackers deceived users into helping them steal 4,502.9 BTC from the exchange’s official wallet by causing about $330 million in losses. It is the seventh largest hack in the history of cryptocurrencies and the largest since 2022.
According to the FBI, United States Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center, and the Japanese National Police Agency, North Korean hackers did this as part of an attack that came to be known as the Trader Traitor campaign.
Another big hack involved the Indian exchange WazirX. There, a problem in the checks on multisig wallets meant more than $230 million lost.
In February, hackers stole the private key of the PLA token smart contract on the PlayDapp blockchain gaming platform. With this move, they managed to mint 1.79 billion tokens with the attacker’s permission.
After negotiations and an offer of a $1 million reward for white-hat hackers, the attackers were still free to create more tokens. The exchanges froze the tokens so they could not be sold in large quantities. It was a phishing email posing as a legitimate request from a partnership exchange.
Around the same time, Turkey’s BtcTurk lost $90 million when hackers gained unauthorized access to its hot wallets in June, and Binance froze $5.3 million in stolen assets.
Some of the biggest incidents were that of Singapore-based exchange BingX, which had reportedly suffered loss through unauthorized access to almost $45 million in September.
Another was Radiant Capital in October with an estimated loss of about $50 million. Hedgey Finance is also in the list, losing about $44.7 million, and it’s because of input validation issues. Penpie lost almost $27.35 million from malicious smart contracts and flash loan attacks in the liquidity rewards.
For this reason, there has to be an improvement in the security aspect for platforms. Rug pulls are where rogue teams advertise projects for cash and run off with it.
Major Rug Pulls
In 2024, fifty-eight cases of rug pulls happened, leading to a loss of $106 million. The largest rug pull in the zkSync system was $36.95 million. The most rug pulls occurred in the BSC system, at 28 in total. The most popular one was SHARPEI. It used images of Shar Pei dogs and celebrities to drive its price to $54 million. It was sold after this for $3.4 million, with a loss of 96% for the token.
The nature of such incidents calls for proper regulation and necessary security measures over the fast-growing industry of cryptocurrency. Some proposals are for compulsory auditing of smart contracts, tightening control over KYC and AML, and also the provision of insurance pools from which an account can be withdrawn in the case of breach.
Another tendency has been noted where countries begin taking collective steps to combat cyber threats at international levels.
The SEC will probably play a pretty big role in the Trump administration because it’s an advocate for cryptocurrencies. As Congress is largely controlled by Republicans, it would probably focus on clear rules encouraging new ideas but at the same time protecting investors.
Although there are so many problems, it is also ready to build a safer and stronger system. With the help of cryptocurrency support from the Trump administration to make security better with clearer rules, it could enter a new time of creativity in trust in digital assets.
It all depends on how regulators and developers work with the community to solve problems that may arise in 2025.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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