With cryptocurrency evolving as a digital asset around the world and an alternative to fiat currency in some nations, hackers have also started using sophisticated tools to steal from digital wallets (mostly third-party) of organisations and individuals. A similar hack was reported on Wednesday where cyber thieves were able to steal more than $320 million in cryptocurrency.

Here are some of the most significant cryptocurrency heists:

February 2022: Unidentified hackers stole more than $320 million in cryptocurrency on Wednesday exploiting an online communications bridge called Wormhole which links different decentralised finance (DeFi) blockchain networks. In a tweet, Wormhole, which connects the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, said thieves “exploited” the network and managed to steal 1,20,000 wrapped Ether.

August 2021: In the biggest ever crypto heist, hackers exploited vulnerabilities in the decentralised finance (DeFi) platform, Poly Network, and stole $600 million in Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and USDC (USD Coin) tokens. In a tweet, Poly Network announced that the vulnerability was between contract calls.

April 2021: Raees and Ameer Cajee -- two brothers who run Africrypt, a currency exchange service based in Johannesburg (South Africa) -- ‘vanished’ with $3.6 billion in investments. Their company, founded in 2019, described itself as an investment firm focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

October 2020: Cryptocurrency assets worth $24 million were stolen from Harvest Finance by a lone hacker. Harvest Finance is a DeFi platform which lets users invest and also farm the price variations in crypto for small profit yields. Later, the investigation found that the hacker stole $13 million worth of USD Coin (USDC) and $11 million worth of Tether (USDT).

September 2020: KuCoin platform, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, detected “some large withdrawals” of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and ERC-20 tokens. According to estimates, at least $150 million in cryptocurrency was stolen but the CEO of the exchange said that a majority of the amount was recovered.

June 2020: CryptoCore Hacker group, an organised hacker group operating out of Eastern Europe, stole $200 million from various online cryptocurrency exchanges. The group has been active since 2018 using the same modus operandi to target exchanges around the world.

November 2019: A lone hacker stole 342,000 Ether coins worth $50 million and managed to transfer them to an unknown address. The probe revealed that the hacker used Upbits hot wallet to gain access to their exchange.

February 2018: Hackers stole $195 million in nano tokens from Italy-based exchange BitGrail. BitGrail’s founder Francesco Firano, along with the nano development team, was later found responsible for "overlooking safety measures".

January 2018: Japan-based Coincheck had its NEM (XEM) tokens stolen to the tune of more than $530 million. NEM developers were able to identify the stolen coins. However, the coins lost a lot of their value after the attack.

February 2014: Over a period of a few years, hackers stole 100,000 bitcoins from MT Gox, a Bitcoin exchange, and 750,000 bitcoins from its customers. The heist could only be discovered in 2014.

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(Edited by : Thomas Abraham)

First Published:Feb 3, 2022 11:23 AM IST