Blockchain security incidents and loss counts in 2018
Since the advent of Bitcoin, the number of stolen items has exceeded 1 million, worth about $7 billion.
According to Beosin (Chengdu Chain Security), there were nearly 100 security incidents in the global blockchain field in 2018, with losses exceeding $2 billion. Blockchain,underlying technology of bitcoin, faces security risks from the data layer, network layer, consensus layer, incentive layer, contract layer, and application layer. Security attacks are endless and preventable.
2018 is a crucial year for the development of blockchain, but security issues have become the core and key to restrict its development. Nearly one hundred security incidents occurred throughout last year, an increase of 538% compared to 2017. Blockchain security attacks mainly occur in the application layer, where smart contracts are the hardest hit area for blockchain security.
Influential security incidents in the blockchain industry in 2018:
In January 2018, Coincheck, Japan's largest digital currency exchange, was hacked, and the NEM which is worth more than $534 million on the platform was illegally transferred.
In January 2018, the imToken wallet was hacked, resulting in the theft of BTM with value of more than 2.5 million CHY. The victim stated that both his mobile phone and the computer had a private key, but it was not clear how the hacker would succeed. At the same time, imToken also actively assisted users in the investigation, but did not find any information about the thief.
On 11th February, 2018, the Italian cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail was attacked and the $170 million cryptocurrency NANO was stolen.
On 22nd April, 2018, there was a major loophole in the BeautyChain contract. The hacker generated unlimited tokens through the batch transfer of the contract, resulting in the value of BEC almost zero.
On 25th April, 2018, SmartMesh experienced a major security hole similar to BEC, with a loss of $140 million.
On 25th July , 2018, a loophole occurred in the Game of Werewolves (EOS version of Fomo 3D), causing the game to lose 60,686 EOS. After the EOS Core Arbitration Forum (EACF) arbitrates on the behavior of hackers, it issues a new arbitration order to freeze the hacker's EOS account: eosfomoplay1.
On 20th September, 2018, Zaif, the Japanese digital currency exchange, announced that it had suffered a hacker attack and lost $59.67 million. Of this amount, 19.59 million US dollars belong to the exchange's own funds, and the remaining 40.07 million US dollars belong to the client's funds.
On 3rd December, 2018, Dice3D suffered a hacker attack and lost 10,569 EOS. The hacker has transferred the stolen EOS to Huobi. Dice3D officially decided to take out some EOS at its own expense to compensate the users.