- Private key compromises accounted for almost half of financial losses in onchain security breaches in Q1 2024.
- These kinds of attacks have surged since the same period last year, a report published on Wednesday said.
It’s official: poor private key management is an expensive security risk for crypto investors.
In the first quarter, about $503 million was lost in onchain security breaches, a report from blockchain auditor CertiK said.
Of that figure, almost half — $239 million — was lost in private key compromises, though these kinds of breaches made up just 12% of all security incidents, said the report, published on Wednesday.
The most high-profile of these attacks in the first quarter was sustained by Ripple co-founder and executive chair Chris Larsen in late January.
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The breach was first noticed by onchain sleuth ZachXBT, who posted details of an exploit where the culprit drained around 212 million XRP tokens worth about $112.5 million.
Larsen confirmed the attack, but not the amount, saying on X that his personal wallets had been affected by “unauthorised access.”
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