Flash loan attacks drained $1.211 billion from DeFi, University of Winchester study finds

Decentralized finance has a security problem, and a new academic study has put a price tag on one corner of it. Researchers from the University of Winchester and a blockchain risk analyst found that flash loan attacks cost DeFi users $1.211 billion between February 2020 and July 2024. Worse, the attacks became more sophisticated and less predictable as time went on. What the researchers found The study was co-authored by Professor Tim Hall of the University of Winchester’s Department of Policing, Criminology and Forensics. His partner on the project was Remo Stieger, formerly of SyntiFi Risk Intelligence. Together they combed through 20.63 billion transactions across seven blockchains, including Ethereum and BNB Chain. Across the full study window, the pair identified 254 successful DeFi attacks. Combined losses reached $6.568 billion. Flash loan attacks made up 72 of those incidents. They accounted for $1.211 billion of the total damage. The findings were published in the Journal of Financial Crime. The researchers describe their work as the first to combine traditional criminology with on-chain intelligence analysis. Flash loans, explained without the headache A user borrows fund...