Investors in decentralized finance (DeFi) should brace themselves for another sizable year of attacks and exploits as new projects hit the market and hackers advance in skill.
Drofa’s “An Overview of DeFi Security In 2022” research features interviews with executives from the blockchain security and auditing companies HashEx, Beosin, and Apostro. The CEOs were questioned over the cause of the sharp rise in DeFi hacking last year and whether or not this will persist through 2023.
Although DeFi protocols will continue to develop and improve security, Tommy Deng, general director of blockchain security company Beosin, acknowledged that “there is no absolute security.”
Many fresh DeFi initiatives “don’t go through complete security testing before going live,” according to Deng.
A substantial number of projects are also investigating the use of cross-chain bridges, which were a top target for attackers last year and resulted in the theft of $1.4 billion in six vulnerabilities. Noting that the hackers are well compensated for the attacks in 2022, CertiK, a blockchain security firm, specifically underlined the potential of additional attempts by hackers attacking bridges in 2023.
Dmitry Mishunin, the founder and CEO of the crypto auditing company HashEx, claimed that hackers had improved in knowledge, experience, and bug-finding skills. However, he claimed that staying one step ahead of deceptive individuals is challenging because the cryptocurrency sector is still in its infancy, and everyone is still learning. He continued that the profitability of some DeFi initiatives made the sector “very attractive” to bad actors, and the frequency of hacks “is only going to boost moving forward.”
“The crypto industry is still relatively new, and everyone is growing with each other, so it’s difficult to get too far ahead of bad actors.”
According to Mishin, these attacks may even spread beyond DeFi as hackers target banks and cryptocurrency exchanges that enter the market with more secure options for keeping digital assets.