Immunefi | Crypto

The proliferation of new frontier AI models is the main catalyst behind the latest resurgence in DeFi hacks, according to Immunefi CEO Mitchell Amador. New artificial intelligence (AI) models have shifted the cybersecurity playing field in favor of attackers, causing a “vulnerability apocalypse” that led to the resurgence in decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks, according to Mitchell Amador, the CEO of bug bounty platform Immunefi. The proliferation of new AI models, such as Claude Opus 4.8 and ChatGPT 5.5, is the main reason that led to the resurgence in crypto hacks in 2026, Amador told Cointelegraph at the recent WAIB Summit in Monaco. Hacking activity across the industry surged in April 2026, with illicit actors stealing more than $634 million from cryptocurrency platforms, the highest monthly total since the Bybit hack helped drive losses to roughly $1.4 billion in February 2025, according to DefiLlama data. Read more

Beyond immediate losses, attacks often lead to prolonged downtime, liquidity shocks and confidence erosion, as interconnected DeFi systems amplify the impact across markets. A new security report from Immunefi finds that crypto hacks continue at a steady pace while losses are becoming more concentrated in a small number of massive exploits. Analyzing 425 publicly known incidents between 2021 and 2025, the report estimates that the average hack now results in about $25 million in stolen funds. In 2024 and 2025 alone, 191 hacks led to $4.67 billion in losses, with just five incidents accounting for 62% of the total. Despite representing fewer incidents, centralized exchange breaches drove the majority of losses. Twenty exchange hacks accounted for roughly $2.55 billion, or about 55% of the total, reflecting how large pools of user funds are concentrated behind fewer points of failure. Read more

Ripple collaborates with Immunefi to engage security experts globally for the XRPL Lending Protocol.