In December 2023, the cryptocurrency world was rocked by a significant security breach on Orbit Chain’s cross-chain bridge, resulting in the theft of nearly $100 million in digital assets, as reported by leading blockchain security firms.
On January 1st, PeckShield, a prominent blockchain security company, confirmed that the exploit on Orbit Bridge had led to losses of $81.5 million, marking December as the fifth-highest month for crypto hacks throughout the year.
This breach also ranked as the ninth-largest attack on a cross-chain bridge over the past three years. Orbit Bridge is the bridging service affiliated with Orbit Chain, a cross-chain protocol originating from South Korea in 2018.
The breach occurred on December 31st, 8:52 pm UTC, due to unauthorized access to Orbit Bridge’s ecosystem.
In response to this alarming incident, the Orbit Chain team swiftly sought assistance from major global cryptocurrency exchanges, urging them to freeze the stolen assets.
They also emphasized their close collaboration with law enforcement agencies to trace and immobilize the illicitly obtained funds.
Estimates provided by blockchain security firms, including PeckShield, CertiK, and Beosin, revealed that crypto losses in 2023, stemming from hacks, scams, and exploits, ranged from $1.51 billion to $2 billion.
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Notably, September and November witnessed particularly devastating losses, surpassing $700 million during those two months alone, based on PeckShield’s data.
The unfortunate events included the Mixin Network’s loss of $200 million in September and major exploits in November, with Poloniex and HTX/Heco Bridges experiencing losses of $131.4 million and $113.3 million, respectively.
Other noteworthy incidents throughout the year included a $197 million exploit on Euler Finance in March and a $125 million hack on Multichain in July.
Despite the overall increase in crypto-related security incidents, Beosin, another blockchain security firm, highlighted a notable decline in hacks, phishing scams, and rug pulls compared to 2022.
Total losses dwindled from approximately $4.38 billion, with the most significant reduction occurring in hack-related losses, decreasing from $3.6 billion in 2022 to $1.4 billion in 2023, marking a substantial decline of about 61.2%.
These statistics reflect a mixed landscape for cryptocurrency security, with improvements in certain areas but ongoing challenges in safeguarding digital assets.
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