Key Takeaways
- Certik noted that there were 16 separate cases last month where individual exploits led to losses of at least $1 million each.
- The firm highlighted that losses from code vulnerabilities saw a sharp decline, from $272 million in Q2 to $78 million in Q3 this year.
The blockchain security firm CertiK has flagged September as a historic month for crypto exploits, warning that attackers pulled off a record number of high-loss incidents. CertiKAlert took to X (formerly Twitter) to point out that there were 16 separate cases last month where individual exploits led to losses of at least $1 million each.
The figure marks the highest monthly count of million-dollar incidents since CertiK began tracking on-chain security events, underscoring the persistent vulnerability of the digital asset ecosystem. Importantly, the count excludes phishing scams, focusing instead on major hacks, protocol-level breaches, rug pulls, and smart contract vulnerabilities.
The firm highlighted that losses from code vulnerabilities saw a sharp decline, from $272 million in Q2 to $78 million in Q3 this year. The same time frame also witnessed phishing-related losses declining
Centralized exchanges witnessed the largest share of losses in Q3, suffering a staggering $182 million in exploits. DeFi protocols lost $86 million, including a $40 million exploit at GMX v1, which was later repaid after a bounty.
For much of 2025, security firms had noted a relative decline in total losses from crypto-related hacks compared to earlier years. As per Certik, September’s surge in crypto hacks pulled the year-to-date average for 2025 to nearly six million-dollar security incidents per month, which is still below the averages of over eight incidents in the past two years.
A July report by Chainalysis has noted that crypto thieves plundered an unprecedented $2.17 billion in digital assets during the first six months of 2025, surpassing 2024’s full‑year tally.
The firm had then noted that hackers this year have spent, on average, 14.5 times the typical on‑chain transaction fee to move funds quickly through mixers, privacy chains, and cross‑chain bridges — a major surge from 2.6 times in 2021
