The Web3 industry lost $364 million in April, with phishing becoming a major threat

The latest data shows that the Web3 industry will suffer losses of up to $364 million due to security incidents in April 2025, with the majority stemming from Phishing attacks. This staggering figure is primarily attributed to a single incident: a U.S. senior citizen fell victim to a meticulously designed social engineering attack, resulting in the theft of 3,520 bitcoins.

According to on-chain investigators, these stolen assets were quickly transferred to multiple trading platforms and exchanged for anonymous currencies, causing the prices of related coins to spike by 50% temporarily. The victims are said to be long-term holders of these bitcoins since 2017.

In addition, several notable attack incidents occurred in April. A decentralized exchange lost 7.5 million dollars due to a price oracle vulnerability; a project team suffered a hacker attack resulting in a loss of 5.8 million dollars; an airdrop contract of an Ethereum scaling protocol was also attacked, with over 5 million dollars stolen by the attackers. Fortunately, some of the funds from these three incidents were recovered with the assistance of white hat hackers.

Compared to March, the loss amount in April increased significantly. However, compared to the "historical highest month" of $1.5 billion set in February, the data this month remains relatively moderate. Notably, in the first quarter of 2025, the entire industry has lost $1.67 billion due to hacking attacks, a year-on-year increase of 303%, with the Ethereum ecosystem becoming the primary target of attacks.

In the face of the ongoing severe security situation, industry experts are calling for the incorporation of advanced technologies such as formal verification into the security defense system, and emphasize the need to recognize the systemic risks exposed by each attack incident. At the same time, experts advise Web3 project teams and users to verify the authenticity of URLs and smart contracts when conducting asset transfers, to use cold wallets and other offline storage methods, and to avoid publicly sharing digital asset information on social media to enhance overall security.

As blockchain technology gradually becomes an important part of global financial infrastructure, security challenges in the industry remain severe. Continuous attention and improvement of security measures will be key to the healthy development of the Web3 industry.