Last Monday, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned that cyber criminals are increasingly exploiting the flaws of the distributed finance (DeFi) platform to loot cryptocurrency.

According to the Derker News report, the FBI reported in a warning that “the FBI observed cybercriminals stealing investors’ cryptocurrencies by exploiting the vulnerabilities of smart contracts that manage the DeFi platform.”

Attackers used various methods to hack and steal cryptocurrency from DeFi platforms, including launching flash loans that cause abuse in platform smart contracts and exploiting signature verification defects on token bridges to withdraw all investments.

The FBI also observed criminals defrauding the platform by exploiting a series of vulnerabilities to manipulate cryptocurrency price pairs (exchangeable assets on the exchange) by bypassing SleepCheck and stealing about $35 million in digital funds.

Threat actors are also trying to capitalize on the growing public interest in cryptocurrency and are once again showing the opportunistic nature of attacks.

In fact, losses from cryptocurrency hacking rose nearly 60% to $1.9 billion in the first seven months of this year due to a steep rise in funds stolen from DeFi protocols, according to a report published this month by blockchain analysis company Chainalysis.

The company pointed out, “DeFi protocols are very vulnerable to hacking because cybercriminals looking for exploits can study open source code, and the motivation for protocols to reach the market and grow rapidly leads to failure of security best practices.”