Despite the cryptocurrency industry witnessing hacks seemingly every week, the month of August saw a marked decrease in the amount of crypto stolen in hacks and rug pulls, according to a new report from bug bounty platform Immunefi.

During August, only around $15 million in crypto was stolen, bringing the total amount swiped in 2024 to slightly more than $1.2 billion. While the number represents a 15% spike in crypto stolen this year compared to 2023, the stolen funds were distributed across more than 150 incidents in the first eight months of 2024, Immunefi said.

The majority of attacks this year targeted DeFi, Immunefi data shows, and were not the result of code vulnerabilities or stolen private keys, the report said.

Instead, hackers have been targeting BNB Chain, which has emerged as the blockchain ecosystem of choice for hackers looking to carry out targeted rug pull scams and other crypto heists, according to a separate Immunefi report released last month. Forked code has made these rug pulls more common on BNB Chain, which underwent several hard forks recently – including ZhangHeng, Plato and Hertz to reduce the possibility of future security exploits.

Despite this, $1.64 billion has been stolen from BNB Chain since it was created in 2017, and that number is only expected to increase as hackers seek out more high-value opportunities on the network.

Ethereum, one of the most popular blockchain networks, has also been the victim of myriad scams and hacks, resulting in significant financial losses for users.