Crypto market has so far lost $718 million to cyber attacks in October 2022 alone

Hackers are targeting several decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols in a series of cyber attacks this October that has seen the crypto market losing over $718 million to crypto-related theft with just two weeks remaining before the end of the month.

So far in 2022, crypto theft has reached $3 billion across 125 hacks and is likely to surpass the $3.2 billion stolen in 2021, as the biggest year for crypto-related hacks on record, according to Chainalysis.

"Cross-chain bridges remain a major target for hackers, with 3 bridges breached this month and nearly $600 million stolen, accounting for 82% of losses this month and 64% of losses all year", Chainalysis mentioned in tweet.

Cross-chain bridges are protocols that enable users to transfer their tokens from one network to another, a channel that connects two blockchains and allow users to transfer tokens, utilize smart contracts, exchange data, and employ other functionalities of interoperable chains.

If poorly protected, these protocols become low-hanging fruit for hackers, who make easy pickings of their too-easily accessed lock.