Crypto Exploits Drain Over $4B in Past Year - Here’s What’s Actually Happening

Four billion dollars vanished. Not in a market crash—through digital heists targeting the very infrastructure of decentralized finance.

The Anatomy of a Modern Exploit

Forget clumsy bank robberies. Today's crypto exploits are surgical strikes. Smart contract logic gets twisted, bridging protocols are drained, and governance tokens become weapons. Attackers don't crack vaults—they find the one line of code that says 'withdraw' and manipulate the conditions. It's less 'Ocean's Eleven,' more 'math class gone rogue.'

Security Isn't a Feature—It's the Foundation

The industry's breakneck pace often treats security as an afterthought. Teams rush to launch, chasing the next hype cycle while auditors play catch-up. That multi-million dollar protocol? Sometimes it's secured by a weekend's worth of code review. The result? Attack surfaces widen faster than defenses can be built.

A Silver Lining in the Storm Clouds

Paradoxically, each mega-exploit forces a leap forward. White-hat hackers now bag bounties larger than some Series A rounds. Insurance protocols are emerging as a legitimate DeFi sector. And the best developers? They're studying exploit post-mortems like sacred texts—learning more from one failure than a dozen successful launches.

The institutional money watching from the sidelines? They're not scared of volatility anymore—they're terrified of smart contract risk. Which, for traditional finance veterans used to 'too big to fail' bailouts, must feel refreshingly familiar. At least in crypto, the failure is transparent and immediate.

This isn't an extinction event—it's growing pains on a blockchain. The four billion dollar lesson? In the race to rebuild finance, sometimes you have to watch the scaffolding collapse to learn how to build it properly next time. The capital will return. The real question is what it finds when it gets back.

North Korea takes up to 52% of the Web3 haul

DPRK hackers continued targeting Web3 projects, taking 52% of the haul from those types of projects, based on Hacken’s data. DeFi exploits accelerated significantly in the second half of 2025, with attacks against new DEXs. This time around, there were fewer bridging attacks, as bridges were not as important to ecosystems. 

Crypto exploits were more diverse in 2025, with a high share of access control attacks. | Source: Hacken.

DeFi exploits in 2025 could rely on much more robust systems to swap or hide funds. Tornado Cash remained the go-to mixed for ETH, while hackers also relied on standard DEX routing to quickly swap funds.

Smart contract vulnerabilities made up around 12.8% of all exploits, and the theft depended on the amount of value locked in various protocols. Even small vaults or contracts were targeted when a known and relatively easy vulnerability was spotted, as some of the Web3 projects were cloned from previous contracts.

Crypto exploits target Web3 developer teams

Instead of broad attacks with malicious links, threat actors are targeting high-value wallet holders directly. Web3 teams are often selected for access to high-value vaults and token wallets. 

One of the recent vectors of attack is legitimate-sounding projects, which then set out ads to hire Web3 developers. The interviewing process then relies on malware to infect both personal and corporate computers, gaining access to wallets. 

The malware is usually downloaded through a legitimate meeting link, allowing it to access existing private keys on the infected machine. 

The attackers can often access the machines of Web3 projects or exchanges, gaining access to wallets or admin rights to change smart contracts.

Access control was one of the major sources of exploits, with up to 53% of hacks ascribed to some FORM of direct access to multisig wallets. The remaining thefts depended on user error, as well as smart contract vulnerabilities, especially unauthorized DeFi token mints, withdrawals, or bridging. 

The first big hack for 2026, on TrueBit protocol, used a similar model, where the hacker minted and withdrew unauthorized amounts of tokens, stealing up to $26M.

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