Crypto Scams And Hacks Surge In February 2025

According to Cointelegraph, losses from crypto scams, exploits, and hacks reached nearly $1.53 billion in February 2025, with the Bybit hack accounting for the majority of these losses. The attack on Bybit, attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, occurred on February 21 and is considered the largest crypto hack to date, surpassing the $650 million Ronin bridge hack in March 2022, which was also linked to Lazarus. This significant increase in losses represents a nearly 1,500% rise from the $98 million recorded in January. Excluding Bybit’s losses, February still saw over $126 million in crypto losses, marking a 28.5% increase. Bybit experienced the largest loss in February, followed by stablecoin payment firm Infini and decentralized money lending protocol ZkLend. Bybit reported that the attackers gained control of a storage wallet, and the FBI confirmed that North Korea was behind the attack. The stolen crypto was reportedly being converted and dispersed across thousands of addresses on multiple blockchains. CertiK identified the second most significant incident of the month as the February 24 hack on Infini, which resulted in a $49 million loss. A key wallet involved in the attack had previously been used in developing Infini contracts and retained admin rights, which were exploited to redeem all Vault tokens. This incident highlights the vulnerability of admin privileges as a single point of failure in blockchain security. The Infini team offered the hacker a chance to keep 20% of the stolen funds if the remainder was returned, along with a guarantee of no legal consequences. However, the 48-hour deadline has passed, and the hacker's wallet still holds over 17,000 Ether, valued at $43 million, according to Etherscan. No public announcement has been made regarding the hacker's decision to accept the offer. Meanwhile, ZkLend suffered the third largest exploit in February, losing $10 million to hackers on February 12. Overall, CertiK reports that the top category for losses in February was wallet compromises, followed by code vulnerabilities, which resulted in $20 million in losses, and phishing, which accounted for $1.8 million in stolen funds. Losses from crypto scams, exploits, and hacks had been declining towards the end of 2024, with December registering the smallest amount stolen at $28.6 million, compared to $63.8 million in November and $115.8 million in October.