The rise of scams and crypto hacks caused significant losses between 2024 and 2025. Frauds reached $4.6 billion in 2024, while hacks totaled $2.47 billion in 2025. This analysis examines attack types, technical flaws, and security measures affecting investors, DeFi platforms, and institutional custodians, emphasizing the urgent need to strengthen trust, transparency, and resilience across the digital financial ecosystem.
Context and impact
Scams have evolved into more complex schemes such as “pig butchering”, which combines social engineering with promises of high returns. A notable impact falls on people over 60: according to the FBI, this group suffered $2.8 billion in losses out of a total of $9.3 billion in crypto fraud in 2024. This situation underscores the need for protection measures for vulnerable groups and coordination among ecosystem actors to reduce exposure and improve prevention.
Hacks and technical vectors
Hacks continue to exploit technical flaws and human errors. In July 2025, a peak of $142 million stolen was reported, with organized and state-sponsored groups involved in exchange and custody incidents. Cross-chain bridges and complex smart contracts concentrate high design risks, disrupting operational liquidity when failures occur and exposing unresolved critical vulnerabilities.
On the technical side, the most common vectors include reentrancy, integer overflows, timestamp dependency, and front running. Mitigations include smart contract audits, secure patterns (checks-effects-interactions), libraries like SafeMath, and continuous testing. However, audits cannot eliminate human risk or social engineering, requiring additional controls and constant operational monitoring to ensure greater system trust.
Security measures and standards
The implications for product teams, compliance officers, and investors are clear:
-
Strengthening KYC/AML controls at entry points.
-
Continuous audits and testing of smart contracts.
-
User education against social engineering.
The adoption of industry standards can also increase trust. The Blockchain Security Standards Council (BSSC) emerges as a key actor in promoting best practices, international norms, and independent audits.
Conclusion
Evidence shows that blockchain security requires a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach. Both technical mitigations —audits, SafeMath, secure patterns— and organizational measures —access controls, education, compliance— are needed to reduce losses and improve system sustainability. The next focus for the sector will be the implementation of standards and continuous audits driven by organizations like the BSSC, which could mark a turning point in global protection.
