Orbit Bridge Hack: $100 Million Lost in December, Including a New Year’s Eve Attack

Crypto News – December was the fifth-highest month for intrusions in 2023, according to PeckShield, which announced the $81.5 million cross-chain bridge exploit on Orbit Bridge on January 1.

Orbit Bridge Hack: $100 Million Lost in December, Including a New Year’s Eve Attack

It also stated that, over the previous three years, the exploit ranked seventh in hacks targeting cross-chain bridges. At 8:52 PM UTC on December 31, Orbit Bridge announced that it had been compromised due to an illegal access violation to its ecosystem. Major international cryptocurrency exchanges were asked to freeze the stolen funds, the Orbit Chain team reported on January 1.

We are in close contact with law enforcement agencies, and we are working diligently to track down and freeze the assets that have been stolen,

Orbit Bridge

Hack Losses Decreased in 2023 Compared to 2022

The entire amount of cryptocurrency that was lost in 2023 as a result of scams, hacks, and attacks was estimated by blockchain security companies PeckShield, CertiK, and Beosin to be between $1.51 billion and $2 billion. PeckShield data shows that September and November were especially bad, with approximately $700 million lost in just those two months.

However, phishing scams, rug pulls, and breaches all experienced sharp drops in 2022, according to blockchain security company Beosin, with total losses falling from about $4.38 billion. The largest decline was in hacking losses, which dropped from $3.6 billion in 2022 to $1.4 billion in 2023—a drop of almost 61.2%, according to the report.