Bybit Blocked $700M+ in Crypto Hacks in H1 2026

Monitoring has become a wider issue across the crypto industry. A separate report from Hacken found that compromised keys and infrastructure accounted for 88.3% of about $764 million stolen in Q2 2026. Hacken reviewed 1,427 projects and found only 9% had third-party monitoring in place. Just 4% combined monitoring with a bug bounty and a security audit.

Bybit says AI now plays a larger role in its defenses. More than 100,000 security alerts received AI-assisted analysis during the first half of the year. According to the report, AI-supported audits caught high-severity vulnerabilities at three to five times the rate of manual review. Automation also cut the time between a security assessment and follow-up testing from about two weeks to roughly two hours.

The exchange’s automated red-team platform assessed 1,489 public-facing assets. It found more than 100 high-severity vulnerabilities during the process.

Bybit’s David Zong, head of group risk control and security, said the cybersecurity field has “entered an era of minutes.” He added that human judgment still guides the most critical security decisions.

Bybit has also taken legal steps tied to the 2025 hack. Earlier this month, it filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against North Korea and the Lazarus Group. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking certain unidentified defendants from moving or disposing of assets tied to the case. The civil case is separate from ongoing U.S. criminal investigations into North Korean hacking activity.

Tracing the stolen funds has grown harder over time. In March 2025, Bybit said 88.87% of the funds remained traceable. By April, that figure had dropped, with CEO Ben Zhou saying 27.6% of the funds could no longer be tracked after being converted into Bitcoin and spread across thousands of wallets.

The court has not issued a final ruling on Bybit’s claims against North Korea or the Lazarus Group. The exchange says it plans to pursue further legal relief as the case continues.