2022 has been a lucrative year for hackers preying on the nascent Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) spaces, with more than $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency fleeced in several high-profile hacks to date. Cross-chain protocols have been particularly hard hit, with Axie Infinity’s $650 million Ronin Bridge hack accounting for a significant portion of stolen funds this year.
The pillaging continued into the second half of 2022 as cross-chain platform Nomad saw $190 million drained from wallets. The Solana ecosystem was the next target, with hackers gaining access to the private keys of some 8000 wallets that resulted in $5 million worth of Solana (SOL) and Solana Program Library (SPL) tokens being pilfered.