As Hacks Near $9 Billion in 2026, Crypto Has A Hole in Its Pocket

Another year, another wave of cryptocurrency hacks, and the losses are harder and harder to ignore.

With billions of dollars stolen, exchanges breached, and sophisticated attackers finding routes around security systems, crypto is once again facing questions how safely people can store their digital assets.

$8.78 billion has been stolen by crypto hacks and exploits across 329 recorded incidents in 2026, at the time of writing.

The figure includes assets that were subsequently frozen or recovered, but it’s a bleak picture of the scale of security breaches.

The largest incident came last month, when hackers compromised Binance in an attack affecting approximately $6.34 billion in digital assets.

The breach became the largest reported cryptocurrency hack in history, surpassing the $1.5 billion stolen from Bybit in February of last year. Not the kind of record a company wants to break.

While Binance reported that approximately $2.85 billion of the affected assets had been frozen or intercepted and that it had replenished 98% of the impacted token assets by October 31, the incident exposed how vulnerable centralized crypto infrastructure is.

Crypto’s Pyongyang Problem

Binance has dominated the headlines, but the industry’s security downfalls extend well beyond the exchange.

North Korea has proven to all industries, especially crypto, that they have dedicated teams and resources to find any exploit possible and cash out. And it’s not likely they will give up this profitable gambit for the foreseeable future.

Cryptocurrency security incidents resulted in more than $1.31 billion in losses during the first half of 2026.

Excluding the unusually large Bybit hack from the year’s comparison, losses were approximately 28% higher than in the same period of 2025.

Wallet compromises accounted for more than $444 million across just 33 incidents.

These attacks are a result of a recurring weakness in how cryptocurrency is stored and managed.

Although Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies allow people to control their assets without financial intermediaries, users still leave funds on exchanges, trusting these companies to protect the digital keys that authorize transactions.

Even those who move their cryptocurrency into personal wallets aren’t safe from attackers. A compromised computer, malicious application, or deceptive transaction can still result in stolen funds if the owner unknowingly authorizes the wrong action.

The Bybit hack demonstrated this clearly. North Korean hackers compromised infrastructure supporting the Safe wallet interface, manipulating the information shown to employees approving a transaction.

Although the employees used hardware wallets, they unknowingly authorized instructions that allowed the attackers to take control of the funds.

The incident puts on full display the limitation of traditional hardware wallet security that keeping private keys isolated doesn’t protect users who cannot understand what they’re signing.

Why One Wallet Provider Is Moving Into Hardware

With attackers exploiting weaknesses in both exchange infrastructure and transaction approvals, hardware wallets are as important as ever for the industry’s security.

Ambire , an established software wallet provider, introduced its first dedicated hardware wallet, Ambire Ice, designed for Ambire and Safe smart accounts.

The device combines the security of a physical wallet with the transaction-management capabilities of Ambire’s existing software.

It doesn’t ask users to approve technical information, because Ice is designed to display what a transaction will actually do, including where assets are being sent, what permissions are being granted, and whether someone is attempting to change who controls an account.

In simple terms, not complex number sequences.

This approach, known as clear signing , has caught the attention of the industry. Earlier this year the Ethereum Foundation announced an initiative to improve transaction transparency, identifying unclear signing requests as a security weakness that has contributed to major crypto losses, including the Bybit incident.

Ambire Ice also incorporates two secure elements from NXP and Infineon, offline transaction signing, and a physical switch that disconnects USB data and Bluetooth connectivity.

Its open-source hardware and firmware are intended to make the device’s design inspectable by developers and security researchers.

The significance of a software wallet provider developing its own hardware is the ability to bring the entire security process together.

It’s a novel idea to not rely on separate applications and devices that may interpret transactions differently, so a wallet provider can design the software interface and physical signing experience to work together.

For users, they keep control of their assets without sacrificing convenience and functionality expected from modern crypto wallets.

Can Hardware Wallets Prevent the Major Hack?

Hardware wallets are not a complete solution to cryptocurrency theft. They cannot fix vulnerabilities in exchange infrastructure, eliminate malicious smart contracts, or protect someone who knowingly approves a fraudulent transaction.

However, they can reduce exposure to certain attacks by keeping signing keys under the owner’s control and providing an additional opportunity to inspect transactions before they are authorized.

As cryptocurrency becomes more accessible, the responsibility of securing it is increasingly shared between exchanges, software developers, hardware manufacturers, and users themselves.

The nearly $9 billion affected by security incidents this year is proof of how much work remains. For wallet providers like Ambire, combining software and hardware security offers a way forward, helping users take control of assets while making it harder for attackers to exploit the gap between what a transaction appears to do and what it actually does.

After another year of record-breaking losses, that gap is one the industry can’t afford to overlook.

Artificial Intelligence

Cyber security Course

Cyber Security Resources

Cybersecurity

Information Gathering

Information Security Risks

New Abe Office Malware Tricks Chrome Into Decrypting Its Own Protected Browser Cookies

Google Gemini Safety Filter Bypass Exposes Blocked AI Images Through Download Links

ModSecurity WAF Vulnerability Allows Attackers to Bypass File Upload Restrictions Using Crafted HTTP Requests

GhostAction Attack Hits Tens of Thousands of GitHub Repositories to Steal Cloud and AI Credentials

Hackers Use New Lindnor Backdoor to Target Microsoft SQL Servers in Anubis Ransomware Attack

CISA and FBI Warn of Cyberattacks Targeting Industrial Refrigeration and Cold Chain Monitoring Systems