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While 2022 has been a typically roller-coaster year for cryptocurrency buyers, it’s shaping up to be exceptional for one group of virtual money enthusiasts: thieves. Criminals have already stolen more than $1 billion in crypto this year.<\/p>\n
Attacks on\u00a0Crypto.com in January<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Wormhole in February<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Ronin Network<\/a>\u00a0last month each resulted in multimillion-dollar losses. Cybersecurity experts say hackers are often target decentralized finance, or DeFi, platforms with weak security. DeFi services are typically built on public blockchains, allowing users to exchange crypto back and forth without the need for an established financial institution like a bank or credit union.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We should expect these types of [sophisticated] attacks to continue to increase, as more and more criminal organizations build DeFi-hacking skills in-house,” Mitchell Amador, CEO at cybersecurity auditing firm Immunefi, told<\/a> Yahoo Finance earlier this month. “Furthermore, as DeFi gets bigger and bigger, these kinds of attacks become more and more lucrative.”<\/p>\n