Losses from hacks and scams surged in April, with one single incident accounting for most of the damage.
In April, the crypto sector lost a staggering $364 million to exploits, scams, and hacks, a 1,163% surge from the $28.8 million recorded in March, according to an April 30 X post from blockchain security firm CertiK.
The surge was largely driven by a single attack targeting an elderly American, who lost 3,520 Bitcoin worth $330.7 million.
As previously reported by crypto.news, the attacker reportedly used advanced social engineering tactics to gain access to the victim’s wallet, making it the fifth-largest crypto theft on record.
Excluding that incident, April’s losses totalled $34 million, still representing a 21% rise from the previous month. CertiK identified phishing, access control exploits, social engineering, and price manipulation as the primary attack vectors.
Some of the losses were mitigated due to successful recovery efforts by affected protocols and white hat hackers.
Roughly $18.2 million in stolen funds were recovered over the course of April, according to CertiK. This included full repayments to KiloEx, which had suffered a $7.5 million exploit but saw the funds returned just four days later.
ZKsync Association also recovered $5 million worth of stolen tokens after a breach involving its airdrop distribution contract. According to ZKsync, the attacker agreed to return all funds in exchange for a 10% bounty.
Similarly, DeFi protocol Loopscale managed to reclaim all of the assets stolen in an attack that exploited vulnerabilities in its token pricing functions. The platform recovered $5.8 million after negotiating directly with the attacker, who agreed to return the funds in exchange for a 10% whitehat bounty and immunity from legal action.
Although April saw a sharp rise in losses, February remains the costliest month of the year so far.
As crypto.news reported earlier, February saw crypto losses soar to $1.53 billion, driven almost entirely by two major incidents. The $1.46 billion exploit on crypto exchange Bybit accounted for the majority of losses, while stablecoin issuer Infini lost $49.5 million in a separate attack.
