The blockchain security company – PeckShield – outlined that wrongdoers siphoned $211.5 million worth of cryptocurrencies last month via 26 attacks.

The Euler Finance exploit accounted for the bigger part of the amount after hackers stole $197 million in staked ETH, USDC, wrapped BTC, and DAI.

March Was Not All Sunshine and Roses

The revival of the cryptocurrency market last month and the rising prices of many digital assets seemed like great news for investors and proponents of the industry. However, that momentum coincided with an increase in hacking attacks.

As revealed by PeckShield, cyber criminals drained more than $211 million worth of crypto in March, a significant increase compared to the $35.3 million lost in February.

The Euler Finance exploit that resulted in almost $200 million in digital assets being siphoned accounted for over 93% of the total stash. Decentralized finance (DeFi) project SafeMoon ranked second with $8.7 million in losses, while $5.2 million departed from ParaSpace. 

Attacks on General Bytes ATM ($1.7 million), Tender.fi ($1.58 million), and Swerve Finance ($1.3 million) also comprised the full picture. 

#PeckShieldAlert ~26 exploits grabbed $211.5M in March 2023.
Regarding the @eulerfinance exploit, the estimated loss is $197M. The exploiter has returned 84,963.4 $ETH (~$152.8M) and 29.9M $DAI to the Deployer, and he has already transferred 1,100 $ETH to Tornado Cash pic.twitter.com/kf2Ul4uIun

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) March 31, 2023

The Euler Finance Drama

The DeFi lending protocol made the headlines in the middle of March after hackers breached its security and embezzled nearly $200 million in crypto assets. The wrongdoer borrowed a substantial amount of money through Euler’s platform and later drained the tokens in a so-called flash loan attack.

Shortly after, the entity offered the perpetrator to keep approximately $20 million if they returned the remaining funds. They were reluctant to accept the deal and instead mixed the crypto in Tornado Cash just a few hours after the proposal was made public. 

However, the hacker behind the exploit, going by the name “Jacob,” changed their stance towards the end of the month, sending back over $100 million worth of ETH to the protocol. They went even further in the following days, apologizing for the crime and returning more assets.