Data showed that cryptocurrency hacks in 2024 caused an estimated $3 billion in losses, with access control flaws accounting for 78% of the losses.

2024 proved to be another challenging year for blockchain security, with nearly $3 billion lost. Encryption breachesaccording to the latest Hacken news Research report.

Although the overall financial impact was on par with 2023, attacks exploiting access control vulnerabilities rose sharply. Hacken data shows that these flaws account for 78% of losses, impacting a wide range of sectors, including decentralized finance, centralized finance, and gaming/transfer platforms.

According to the report, access control vulnerabilities were found to be the biggest threat, accounting for 75% of cryptocurrency hack losses, excluding phishing. Meanwhile, DeFi accounted for 20.4% of the total hack losses, while CeFi losses accounted for 30%, the report said. The gaming and metaverse sectors also faced significant losses, totaling $389 million – about 20% of all cryptocurrency hack damage.

Meanwhile, losses associated with cross-chain bridges saw a significant decline to $117 million, down from $330 million in 2023 and $1.9 billion in 2022. Additionally, the blockchain security firm noted that cryptocurrency projects faced increased DNS hijacking incidentshighlighting the need for comprehensive security strategies.

Hacken claims that the data was sourced from verified cryptocurrency project reports, including platforms like X, post-analytics, and databases.