Crypto losses surge to $142M in July as hackers exploit weak infra

The cryptocurrency industry lost roughly $142 million to hacks and scams in July, with Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX bearing the largest losses following a multi-million-dollar hack. On August 1, blockchain security firm PeckShield reported that 17 separate incidents contributed to the total loss, representing a 27% increase from the $111 million stolen in June. Although this was a notable uptick from the previous month, PeckShield said the number was lower than the same period last year, when hackers stole $266 million, driven largely by the $230 million breach of WazirX , another Indian exchange. PeckShield’s analysis highlighted that most of July’s losses stemmed from just a handful of large-scale attacks, which means bad actors were focusing on high-value targets instead of numerous smaller exploits. Experts also stressed that most of the attacks in July employed sophisticated methods that targeted infrastructure weaknesses rather than on-chain smart contracts. CoinDCX leads July losses The Indian crypto exchange lost $44 million due to a server-side compromise on July 19. According to the post-mortem published by the company, the attack affected one of its internal liquidity provisioning accounts but did not impact user funds. Initial findings pointed to a “sophisticated server attack,” but Indian authorities later uncovered that the breach began with a social engineering ploy. Hackers allegedly tricked a CoinDCX employee into installing malware on his company-issued laptop after sending a fake job offer. Once the malware took hold, attackers gained unauthorised access to the exchange’s internal systems and eventually drained crypto assets from one of its operational wallets. Authorities later arrested Rahul Agarwal, a CoinDCX staff engineer, in connection with the breach. While he denied direct involvement in the theft, investigators determined that his credentials had been compromised, allowing attackers to infiltrate backend systems. CoinDCX has since absorbed the entire loss through its corporate treasury. Other major incidents Decentralised derivatives platform GMX came in second with losses amounting to roughly $42 million. However, in this case, bad actors reportedly exploited a contract vulnerability to drain the assets. Fortunately, the attacker returned most of the funds, approximately $40.5 million in Ethereum and Frax Dollar. Next, BigONE, a centralised exchange, lost $28 million on July 16 after a third-party service provider suffered a breach in its hot wallet infrastructure. Another notable incident involved the crypto trading platform WOO X on July 24. This involved attackers using social engineering to compromise a team member’s device. Over a two-hour period, the hacker executed multiple unauthorised transactions, stealing at least $12 million. WOO X later restored affected user accounts using treasury reserves. Future Protocol, a lesser-known project, also suffered a smaller but notable $4.2 million loss through malicious contract approvals, bringing the month’s net unrecovered damage to just over $100 million after the partial GMX recovery. 2025 is on track to break records July’s incidents add to an already troubling year. In the first half of 2025, hackers stole a staggering $2.17 billion from crypto services , already surpassing the $1.87 billion lost in all of 2024. When including individual wallet attacks and phishing schemes, the total value of stolen digital assets climbs above $2.8 billion, according to a midyear report by Chainalysis. If current trends continue, industry losses could exceed $4 billion by the end of 2025. As centralised platforms strengthen their smart contract audits and on-chain monitoring, attackers are increasingly shifting focus to off-chain infrastructure and individuals. Chainalysis noted that 23% of crypto thefts in 2025 came from attacks on personal wallets, often involving violent coercion. Experts agree that unless faster detection methods and stricter access control systems are implemented, crypto platforms will remain vulnerable. The post Crypto losses surge to $142M in July as hackers exploit weak infra appeared first on Invezz

Source: Invezz