Crypto’s biggest hacks drain over $5B – Here’s the major problem they expose

The biggest 10 hacks that have happened since 2022 have drained over $5 billion to date.

But what is eye-catching here is that these hacks did not happen because they broke ‘a single line of code.’ According to CoinBureau,

They [the attackers] broke people, passwords and approval systems instead.

What vulnerabilities led to the biggest hacks?

Here, the biggest attack was the Bybit’s $1.46 billion hack, which took place in February 2025. In this exploit, the hackers compromised a developer’s computer and manipulated what was displayed on the screens of Bybit employees.

Though the transaction appeared legitimate on the surface, the underlying transaction redirected roughly 401,000 ETH to the attackers.

After the investigation, the FBI linked the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group. Well, this was a social-engineering and infrastructure-compromise attack, rather than simply finding a bug in Bybit’s blockchain code.

Then comes the Ronin Network hack, which followed a similar pattern and drained $625 million. Instead of breaking the blockchain itself, attackers compromised five of nine validator keys. In this, the initial access reportedly came through a fake job offer sent to an employee.