Crypto hacks surge 55% to $1.2B, but key theft drops by 30%
Summary
Hacken reported $1.18 billion in crypto thefts during the third quarter, up 55% from the second quarter, across 107 incidents versus 67. Its figures indicate a sharp rise in smart-contract losses, while access-control and operational losses fell about 30%; category comparisons are uncertain because reporting definitions differ. The analysis uses Bitget’s $388 million incident and the Liquid/SideSwap loss involving roughly 4,000 unbacked LBTC to show that protecting private keys alone is insufficient. Compromised authorization processes, flawed asset validation and weak withdrawal checks can all enable losses. Effective security requires independent controls across the full path from validating assets to authorizing and releasing funds.
