Crypto Market Under Siege as Wave of Cyberattacks Hits at Least a Dozen Entities

A wave of cyberattacks has swept through the cryptocurrency market, targeting at least 12 entities in the past two weeks. The attacks follow a major exploit on Drift Protocol on April 1, which resulted in losses of over $280 million.

The latest victim is Rhea Finance, a DeFi protocol that was exploited for $7.6 million. An attacker manipulated the margin trading feature to execute a coordinated pool attack, impacting the Rhea Lend smart contract. The exploit was discovered by blockchain security firm CertiK.

Other affected entities include CoW Swap, Hyperbridge, Bybit, Dango, Silo Finance, BSC TMM, Aethir, MONA, Zerion, and Grinex exchange. The Grinex exchange has suspended operations after a $13.7 million hack on Thursday.

Experts warn that the use of AI in social engineering attacks may make it easier for attackers to infiltrate these systems in the future. In the first quarter of 2023, malicious actors pilfered over $168.6 million in cryptocurrency from 34 DeFi protocols, according to data from DefiLlama.