November 2024 witnessed significant security challenges in the Web3 sector. As per the latest monthly report from SlowMist, the Web3 sector incurred $86.24M in losses over twenty-one incidents, with 5 major cases comprising almost $70M.
SlowMist Report Raises Concerns over the Significant Losses of $86.24M in Web3
SlowMist’s monthly report raised concerns over the security issues which led to a loss of $86.24M during November 2024. The report pointed toward, account compromises, phishing attacks, and smart contract vulnerabilities as the factors behind these incidents. The major incidents took into account MetaWin, DeltaPrime, Thala, DEXX, and Polter Finance.
On the 4th of November, the gambling platform MetaWin experienced a hack. This resulted in losses surpassing $4M across Solana and Ethereum. The hackers leveraged the flaws in the withdrawal system to reach hot wallets. In addition to this, the DeFi protocol DeltaPrime saw an exploit of $4.75M on the 11th of November. This took place because of insufficient validation in the platform’s reward-claiming apparatus on Arbitrum and Avalanche.
Moreover, on the 15th of November, the DeFi project Thala recorded a high-profile attack that drained $25.5M. However, the platform recovered $11.5M through rapid action. Hence, the attacker was left with just $300,000 in the form of a bounty. On the 16th of this month, a well-known trading forum DEXX also saw a $21M breach.
In line with the investigation, the attacker activity took place across up to 8,612 Solana-based addresses. Along with that, Polter Finance went through a flash loan exploit on the 17th of November. This incident took away $12M while the platform was trying to negotiate with the attacker for funds recovery.
The Incidents Stress the Requirement for Adequate Measures to Safeguard Digital Assets
Phishing attacks reportedly accounted for $9.38M, impacting 9,208 victims. Scam Sniffer, a popular anti-phishing platform contributed a lot in unearthing these scams. Although the overall losses were massive, some stolen were effectively recovered. In this respect, Thala’s endeavors to halt the funds and negotiation for a recovery suggest the significance of rapid responses. According to SlowMist, these losses offer a reminder of the increasing risks in the Web3 sector, stressing the requirement for collaboration and vigilance to safeguard digital assets.