Crypto Exploits Plunge 22% — $127M Lost in September, Top Hacks Revealed

Crypto hacks caused $127.06 million in losses in September 2025, according to blockchain security firm PeckShield.

The figure marks a 22% decrease from August’s $163 million, though nearly 20 major exploits were still recorded across the sector.

Losses Decline but Remain High as UXLINK and SwissBorg Hacks Dominate September

PeckShield shared its findings in a post on X, noting the continued risk of large-scale attacks on decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain platforms. While the drop from August’s total shows some decline in criminal activity, the overall figure demonstrates that hacks remain a significant challenge for the industry.

The data shows that September’s total was heavily concentrated in a handful of major incidents, with UXLINK and SwissBorg alone accounting for nearly two-thirds of the losses.

UXLINK, a blockchain-based social networking platform, suffered the month’s largest attack, losing $44.14 million. Following the attack, where the hacker exploited its multisig wallet to mint nearly 10 trillion unauthorized tokens, UXLINK saw its token crash over 90%.

The attacker funneled assets to exchanges, though UXLINK said many deposits were frozen with exchange support and law enforcement notified. Blockchain firms PeckShield and Hacken revealed the hacker kept minting tokens, ultimately swapping about 9.95 trillion for just 16 ETH, approximately $67K.

In response, UXLINK urged exchanges to suspend trading, announced a token swap plan, and noted the attacker ironically lost 500B tokens in a phishing scam during the exploit.

Meanwhile, SwissBorg, a well-known wealth management app in the crypto space, was hit with $41.5 million in Solana. This attack came after hackers breached partner API provider Kiln, draining about 192,600 SOL from its Earn program. Affecting under 1% of users, the platform pledged treasury funds for compensation, engaged white-hat hackers, and stressed that operations remain unaffected.

Alongside the two major ones, a phishing attack on a user of Venus resulted in $13.5 million in stolen assets. PeckShield reported that about $13 million of that amount has been successfully recovered, making it one of the few cases where stolen funds were returned to victims.

Additional September incidents included Yala, which lost $7.64 million, and GriffAI, which suffered a $3 million hack. Smaller exploits impacted Nono, Shibarium Bridge, Basset, New Gold Protocol, and SolidifyFund, each losing between $1 million and $2.4 million.

PeckShield also traced the movement of stolen funds, identifying transfers of hundreds of Ether across wallets. Individual flows ranged from 443 ETH to 800 ETH. It remains unclear whether these assets were funneled into mixers or other laundering services.

September Crypto Hacks Hit $154M, Keeping 2025 on Track for Record-Breaking Losses

September’s figures continue a trend of high-value thefts in 2025, although the decrease from August provides some short-term relief. The losses put September slightly below August’s $163 million total but higher than July’s $142 million, showing no clear downtrend in exploit activity.

More broadly, the first half of 2025 saw billions drained from protocols, with Chainalysis estimating $2.17 billion stolen between January and June, while CertiK placed the number even higher at $2.47 billion. Much of that figure was skewed by February’s massive Bybit hack, which alone accounted for around $1.5 billion in stolen funds.

Comparisons with past years reveal the scale of the problem. The mid-year totals in 2025 already surpassed the $2.2 billion stolen across all of 2024, putting this year on track to be one of the worst in crypto’s history for security breaches.

With three months still left in the year, analysts warn that unless industry-wide defenses improve, 2025 could end up eclipsing prior records set during the peak of 2022’s DeFi exploits.

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