[Digital Today reporter Jinju Hong (홍진주)] Major hacking incidents in the crypto industry in August rose sharply from the previous month. The number of hacks surged, but overall losses fell as the scale of large incidents declined.

Blockchain media outlet U.Today reported on Sept. 1 local time that PeckShieldAlert data tallied 50 major crypto hacking incidents in August. That was about 67 percent more than 30 in July.

The amount of assets stolen through hacking was tallied at $136.3 million. That was down 49.5 percent from about $270 million in July. The frequency of hacks and the scale of losses moved in opposite directions.

A large single incident had a big impact on total losses in August. The biggest loss was at Tectonic Finance, where about $74 million was stolen. That was more than half of the total stolen in August.

PeckShield classified the Tectonic Finance incident as the fourth-largest crypto theft so far this year. It was included among major large-scale hacking cases this year, following earlier incidents involving Drift, KelpDAO·LayerZero and exploitation of Coldcard wallets.

Most of the funds stolen in the Tectonic Finance attack appeared to have been difficult for the attacker to move outside. A large portion remained within the ecosystem, and funds moved to external chains before Kronos halted the chain totalled only about $6 million. The attacker later began laundering accessible funds, and some assets were tallied as having been converted into bitcoin.

Mid-sized and smaller hacks also continued alongside the large incident. Term Labs suffered losses of about $8.5 million, and Moonwell lost about $8.7 million. Coinsbuy lost about $7.9 million, and TAC lost about $7.5 million.

Injective recorded losses of about $4.8 million, and Mantra recorded about $3.6 million. Incidents also occurred at BounceBit, Cosmos Labs and Archiver, at about $3 million, $2.87 million and $2.47 million, respectively.

A standout feature in the August data was the divergence between the number of hacks and total losses. Based on total losses alone, security conditions could appear to have improved from July. But the number of major hacking incidents rose sharply to 50 from 30.

That means that even if losses per attack fell, the frequency of security vulnerabilities being exposed across crypto projects and services increased instead.

In August, damage was not only concentrated in a specific large project, but mid-sized and smaller attacks also occurred simultaneously across multiple projects. That is why analysis is emerging that attack frequency and vulnerability management across the industry are becoming more important than the loss amount of a single incident.

The August hacking statistics show it is difficult to judge that security risks in the crypto industry have fallen based on the decline in losses alone. The scale of a single large hack declined, but major hacks themselves increased sharply within a month.

Going forward, the industry's key task is expected to be how quickly it can discover and block security vulnerabilities occurring simultaneously across multiple projects, as well as whether large single incidents recur.