The denouement of 2022 witnessed the most decreased worth of funds being stolen from the DeFi sector. In December, just $62M value was drained in the exploits. Though this figure might be slightly relieving after several bridge hacks as well as the millions of dollars swindled in 2022, cybersecurity professionals have issued a warning for 2023.

As per the experts, this year will not see any decrease in scams such as exit or flash loan scams. MakerDAO was overtaken by Lido protocol in terms of the highest total value locked (TVL) across the DeFi ecosystem. Apart from that, Avraham Eisenberg (the person responsible for hacking Mango Markets) was arrested to face a trial for criminal allegations leveled against him.

CertiK Says December Saw $62M in Exploits as Smallest Monthly Total in 2022

The beginning of this year witnessed the hack of a whale on GMX for up to $3.5M value of GMX cons. The exploiters hacked the control of nearly 82,519 tokens and exchanged them for 2,627 ETH tokens.

After that, they transacted the respective assets to the network of Ethereum with the utilization of Across Protocol and Hop Protocol. The peak 100 tokens in the DeFi space began in 2023 with a bullish momentum as they were the most utilized in trading during the week.

Cybersecurity exploiters and hackers expressed a decrease in their activities in the holidays of 2022. December’s exploiter crypto assets equal $62.2M worth. This was seen as the lowest figure per month, as per CertiK. On the 31st of December, the blockchain security firm shared a tweet showing a series of the most important attacks of the month.

It pointed out that the exit scams which took away $15.5M worth were the mostly impacting exploits during the month. After that, flash loan hacks drained nearly $7.6M worth of funds in crypto.

The present year provides a new beginning for the bad actors operating within the world of cryptocurrency. In the words of CertiK, 2023 will not likely witness a decrease in hacks, exploits, and scams.

Exploiters Do Not Seem to Stop in 2023 for Exit Scams and Flash Loan Attacks, CertiK

The blockchain security firm mentioned that the malicious actors will start afresh this year. CertiK highlighted the disastrous exploits experienced by the cross-chain bridges in the previous year. 6 out of the ten biggest exploits during 2022 accounted for nearly $1.4 in bridge exploits.

Lido (a protocol for liquid staking) has obtained a considerable advantage because of the Ethereum Merge upgrade that took place in September.

Subsequently, the TVL of the protocol reached the top spot in comparison with the rest of the DeFi protocols. As per the data provided by DefiLlama, the protocol currently contains a TVL of approximately $5.9B in TVL, surpassing Aave’s $3.7B and MakerDAO’s $5.89B in TVL.

In the latest update to the episode of the Mango Markets hack, a directive has been issued by the US District Court for the District of Puerto Rico for the arrest of Avraham Eisenberg.

After conducting a hearing on his arrest, Bruce McGiverin (US Magistrate Judge) determined that Eisenberg’s detention was necessary for many reasons. As per the documents filed in the court, Eisenberg’s release is not reasonable in any case to make sure of his appearance.

The statistical data discloses that the cumulative market value of the DeFi space remained lower than $40B in the previous days. The sector is trading at almost $38.5B at present.