Comparitech researchers run a worldwide cryptocurrency heist tracker which has followed  582 heists since it began tracking in 2011, over 65% of which happened within the last two years. 

The upward trend of heists shows no sign of slowing down. So far, 34 crypto heists have taken place this year compared to the 19 experienced by the end of February last year. 

Of the 34 heists this year, most of them came in the form of exploits and flash loans. The exploit attack takes advantage of a software vulnerability or security flaw. The flash loan attack exploits a crypto exchange’s automated terms and agreement code to borrow large sums of crypto with no upfront collateral on one exchange before quickly selling it on another. 

The most lucrative types of heists last year were the exploit and the hack. Exploits accounted for £1.4 billion in stolen funds over 70 cases and hacks accounted for £1.08 billion across just 36 cases.

In the wake of a crypto heist, Comparitech found that only one in ten cases resulted in any recovered funds. Out of the £7.8 billion stolen since 2011 across 582 cases, £1.9 billion was recovered in total. While 62 cases were able to recover partial funds, 15 recovered all stolen funds. Funds can be recovered in a number of ways from paying bounties demanded by hackers to law enforcement finding and arresting culprits. 

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Notably, a heist carried out last month on dForceNet for £2.9 million was fully recovered by a ‘white hacker’ which is an ethical hacker paid to legally breach data and security systems to identify how a heist happened. 

One in five victims were refunded by their trading platform for their losses during a crypto heist, resulting in £4.1 billion in refunds. 

The average time for a platform to recover any funds is 88 days, while the average time for a full recovery of funds is 43 days. Meaning if all funds aren’t recovered in under two months, it is likely they will never be.