Report: Unverified smart contracts become a new target for attackers, with $36.7 million stolen in six months

According to a report by Chainalysis, over the past six months, at least $36.7 million has been stolen from protocols with unverified source code, involving protocols such as Truebit, Trusted Volumes, Aperture Finance, and Ekubo. Attackers are searching for vulnerabilities by decompiling the original bytecode. AI-assisted vulnerability exploitation development is accelerating this trend, as large language models can scale the identification of vulnerability patterns.

Chainalysis points out that unverified contracts lack community review and are often excluded from bug bounty programs. The barrier to AI decompilation and vulnerability analysis is rapidly decreasing, allowing attackers to systematically scan thousands of unverified contracts. Protocols should verify all contract code, audit the contracts actually deployed, expand the coverage of bug bounties, and implement real-time on-chain monitoring. Each unverified contract is a potential target for automated scanning, and relying solely on obfuscation as a security measure is no longer effective.