Penpie protocol exploited, suffers $27M loss

The Penpie protocol—an independent decentralized finance protocol built atop Pendle—suffered an exploit on Sept. 3, 2024, and was drained of $27 million in client funds at the time of this writing.

Onchain sleuths traced the offending transaction back to an address ending in “bb7,” which was one of multiple addresses used by the hacker. As a precaution, Penpie has suspended all deposits and withdrawals at this time.

Spokespeople for Pendle also reassured users that all customer funds remain safe following the hack and paused all contracts until the issue is resolved.

Crypto hacks on the rise in 2024

Unfortunately, the Penpie exploit is not a unique incident and has become all too common, as crypto hacks and exploits continue to rise in 2024.

A recent report from Immunfi revealed that over $1.2 billion in funds have been stolen through hacks and exploits so far this year. The lost funds are spread across 154 separate incidents.

Related: FBI warns of North Korean ’social engineering’ schemes to steal crypto

Mitchell Amador, founder and CEO of Immunefi, also told Cointelegraph that while the vast majority of these exploits occurred in the decentralized finance space, the exploits of centralized finance infrastructure caused most of the monetary damage due to the vast amounts of capital contained there.

According to a report from security firm PeckShield, monetary losses from hacks exceeded $313 million during August 2024. Two of the most significant attacks during the month resulted in the theft of approximately $238 million in Bitcoin (BTC) and $55 million in Dai (DAI).

Another report from Scam Sniffer shows that monetary losses from phishing attacks—a type of malicious exploit in which a hacker uses deceiving links to extract sensitive information from victims—surged by 215% in August 2024.

The report noted that while the number of phishing attacks in August went down compared to July, the amount of stolen funds surged, with a single attack stealing $55 million.

Magazine: $55M DeFi Saver phish, copy2pwn hijacks your clipboard: Crypto Sec