{"id":131622,"date":"2026-02-02T09:30:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T09:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=131622"},"modified":"2026-02-02T09:30:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T09:30:50","slug":"crypto-hacks-explode-370-million-stolen-in-january-alone-researchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=131622","title":{"rendered":"Crypto Hacks Explode: $370 Million Stolen In January Alone: Researchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The start of this year brought a hard reminder: people remain the weakest link. Reports note that roughly $370 million in crypto<\/a> were taken in January, a sharp climb from earlier months.<\/p>\n

That surge was driven mostly by one massive social-engineering con that emptied a single victim of about $284 million. Simple lies and well-crafted messages beat code this time.<\/p>\n

Phishing Dominates Losses<\/h2>\n

According to CertiK, phishing-style scams grabbed about $311 million of the January haul. That means most losses came from attackers tricking users and insiders rather than breaking cryptographic systems.<\/p>\n

Social pressure, fake links, and impersonation were used to push victims into moving funds. People clicked. Money moved. Accounts were drained.<\/p>\n

A Bigger Picture Of Monthly Swings<\/h2>\n

Based on reports, January\u2019s total is nearly four times the $98 million stolen in January 2025 and more than triple December\u2019s close to $118 million.<\/p>\n

The month is the largest since February 2025, when roughly $1.5 billion was taken, most of that tied to the huge Bybit heist.<\/p>\n

Those big events show how a single breach or scam can tilt an entire month\u2019s tally. Numbers can look calm one month and explosive the next. That unpredictability keeps wallets and treasuries on edge.<\/p>\n

#CertiKStatsAlert<\/a> <\/p>\n

Combining all the incidents in January we\u2019ve confirmed ~$370.3M lost to exploits.<\/p>\n

~$311.3M of the total is attributed to phishing with one victim losing ~$284M due to a social engineering scam.<\/p>\n

More details below pic.twitter.com\/uXhi0P6dl5<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) January 31, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Major Technical Exploits Hit Treasuries<\/p>\n

PeckShield<\/a> flagged several large protocol attacks. Step Finance lost nearly $29 million after treasury wallets were compromised and over 261,000 SOL<\/a> vanished.<\/p>\n

Truebit suffered a $26.4 million hit when a smart contract flaw allowed near-free minting, which also crushed its token price.<\/p>\n

SwapNet and Saga were among other victims, with losses around $13.3 million and $7 million respectively. Those hacks were technical, aggressive, and fast.<\/p>\n

#PeckShieldAlert<\/a> In Jan. 2026, the crypto space saw 16 hacks totaling $86.01M in losses, representing a slight 1.42% YoY decrease compared to Jan. 2025 ($87.25M) but a notable 13.25% MoM surge from Dec. 2025 ($75.95M).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, #phishing<\/a> remains staggering with losses\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/pxugbsPcZ7<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) February 1, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Why This Matters Now<\/p>\n

Reports say there were 40 exploit and scam incidents over January, though the bulk of value lost was concentrated in a few cases.<\/p>\n

That pattern means the raw count of incidents doesn\u2019t tell the whole story; a single, well-executed con can dwarf many smaller breaches combined. Some months will show many small thefts. Other months will be defined by one enormous fraud.<\/p>\n

What Needs To Change<\/p>\n

Security teams and project treasuries must tighten both human and technical safeguards. More rigorous wallet controls, staged approvals, and stronger identity checks would blunt social-engineering strikes.<\/p>\n

At the same time, independent code audits and quicker response plans can limit damage from smart contract bugs. Education programs for staff and users are cheap compared with the cost of a single large loss.<\/p>\n

The recent spike is a clear message: attackers are mixing social skill with technical know-how. The playbook now often starts with a message in a chat app or an email, then turns into code-level theft.<\/p>\n

Patching software helps. Teaching people how to spot scams will stop many attacks before they ever reach the code.<\/p>\n

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The start of this year brought a hard reminder: people remain the weakest link. Reports note that roughly $370 million in crypto were taken in January, a sharp climb from earlier months. That surge was driven mostly by one massive social-engineering con that emptied a single victim of about $284 million. Simple lies and well-crafted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":131623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/131623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}