Hacken reported $1.18 billion stolen across 107 incidents in Q3 2026, up 55% from Q2. Smart-contract exploits made up 48% of losses, against 12% in the previous quarter.
Hackers took $1.18 billion from crypto projects in Q3 2026, and the way they did it shifted. Hacken recorded 107 incidents between July and September, with smart-contract exploits taking a much larger share of losses than three months earlier.
The security firm's Q3 2026 Security and Compliance Report puts the total up 55% from Q2. However, the mix changed: smart-contract losses rose from 12% to 48%. Access-control and operational failures, which accounted for 88% of losses in Q2, fell to 40%.
Wallet keys, infrastructure and vendors remain a danger, though. Hacken says the largest individual losses were linked to supply-chain attacks, compromised keys, and weaknesses in signer and withdrawal systems. Smart-contract and protocol-code vulnerabilities also continued to account for a large number of incidents.
The distinction matters when projects cite completed code audits as proof that funds are safe. A contract review can catch defects in one component, but it cannot by itself secure the signing processes, deployment infrastructure and third-party software around it.
The report also highlights recurring attack techniques and cases where fixes were already public before exploits happened. For users, a security audit's scope, date and follow-through matter as much as the badge on a project's website.
Source: Bitcoinist.com
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