Security

Gate Research's report points out that in January 2025, the Web3 industry experienced 40 security incidents, resulting in approximately $87.94 million in losses, a significant increase compared to the previous month. Account breaches were the primary threat, accounting for 52% of the total losses. Major incidents included a hacker attack on the Phemex exchange, a significant security vulnerability affecting NoOnes, and a private key leak at Moby. These incidents exposed key risks in smart contracts and cross-chain protocols, highlighting the need for stronger contract audits, the introduction of real-time monitoring, and multi-layered defense mechanisms to improve platform security and enhance user trust.

This article explores how to leverage technologies such as ZKP, zkTLS, TEE, and FHE to protect data privacy and ensure data verifiability and trustworthiness in the rapidly evolving landscape of AI and blockchain development.

This article delves into the phishing threats in the Web3 space, where attackers employ tactics like fake accounts, search engine ads, TG bots, phishing emails, and psychological manipulation (greed, fear) to deceive users into revealing their private keys or authorizing transactions, ultimately leading to asset theft.

Discussions around data ownership and privacy have intensified. Web3 data protocols like Vana, Ocean Protocol, and Masa are emerging, driving decentralized data sovereignty and enabling users to control and monetize their data, particularly in AI training and real-time data acquisition. These protocols offer new solutions for data trading and privacy protection, addressing the growing demand for high-quality data.

Compute Labs is a compute tokenization protocol that enables the financialization of AI, direct exposure to compute assets, and the creation of compute derivatives, allowing investors to earn good returns on their investments.

Exploring Pi Network's Mobile Mining Model, the Criticisms It Faces, and Its Differences from Bitcoin, Assessing Whether It Has the Potential to Be the Next Generation of Cryptocurrency.

Analyzing the financial opening policies released by the People’s Bank of China and other regulators, exploring their potential impact and opportunities for the blockchain and crypto asset industry.

This article analyzes the 0x0 platform, an innovative blockchain project combining AI-powered smart contract auditing with privacy protection. Through the Arcane Wallet, users can make anonymous asset transfers while relayers maintain transaction privacy. The platform features an AI auditing system that identifies contract vulnerabilities in real-time, alongside a unique tokenomics and buyback-and-burn strategy to enhance token value. Though facing technical complexities, 0x0's upcoming mainnet launch and ecosystem developments position it as a leader in blockchain privacy and decentralization.

Usual recently garnered market attention due to the USD0++ depegging incident. USD0++ is an enhanced stablecoin backed by RWA assets, offering up to 50% APY. On January 10, Usual modified its redemption rules, reducing the unconditional redemption rate to 0.87, which triggered market panic and caused the USD0++ price to drop to around $0.9. This move is seen as a strategic effort by the project team to accurately trigger the liquidation of high-leverage circular loan positions through a set redemption floor and liquidation line while attempting to control the circulation of the USUAL token and curb the death spiral. However, the centralized and governance-lacking process of the rule changes raised concerns among users. This incident reflects the participation risks in complex DeFi products and the dynamic adjustments in market development.

UniLend was exploited due to a vulnerability, leading to the theft of approximately $200K (4% of TVL). The attacker used a flash loan to deposit 60 million USDC, manipulated collateral calculations, and exploited a contract bug in the health check process to inflate collateral value, withdrawing 60 stETH. The flaw stemmed from the faulty implementation of the userBalanceOfToken function. UniLend has since fixed the issue, paused V2 deposits, and offered a bounty to recover the funds. This incident underscores the critical importance of security for DeFi platforms and the need for thorough smart contract audits.

Ethereum's privacy issues are increasingly gaining attention, especially as transaction transparency may expose users' financial information and activities. To address this issue, Stealth Addresses have been proposed, aiming to ensure the receiver's identity and transaction details remain private by generating a unique temporary address for each transaction. This method does not rely on third-party privacy protocols but enhances privacy directly at the protocol level. However, the implementation of Stealth Addresses still faces challenges.

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the current state and trends in cryptocurrency security in 2024. We will review major security incidents from this year, analyzing attackers' common methods, targets, and resulting losses. We will also examine historical case studies and draw lessons from them. Furthermore, the article looks ahead to future challenges and opportunities in cryptocurrency security, and explores how regulatory authorities and industry participants can work together to address these challenges and build a more secure and reliable cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS) is an emerging cybercrime model in which criminals sell or rent their tools and services to individuals lacking technical expertise, lowering the barriers to committing crimes. In the cryptocurrency space, this model makes it easier for malicious software, phishing tools, and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to be accessed, increasing the risks for users. To protect themselves, users should enhance their security awareness, adopt multi-factor authentication, exercise caution with suspicious links and software, and regularly update their security measures.

Teardrop attacks are a type of Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack that disrupt system operations by sending malformed IP fragment packets. In the crypto space, they can affect nodes, wallets, and exchanges, leading to communication disruptions and transaction delays. To defend against such attacks, systems should be updated promptly to patch security vulnerabilities, firewalls and intrusion detection systems should be configured to filter abnormal traffic, and security at the network layer should be reinforced, thereby effectively ensuring the stability and security of blockchain networks.

Crypto scammers are getting more creative every year, with tactics designed to catch even experienced investors off guard. Today’s guide will walk you through some of the biggest crypto scams of 2024. Along the way, you might recognize some of the tactics and methods aforementioned.