Nemo Protocol, a decentralized finance (DeFi) yield platform operating on the Sui blockchain, fell victim to a cyberattack that resulted in $2.4 million in losses just ahead of its scheduled maintenance window on Monday and 0 security breach was initially detected by PeckShieldAlert on September 8, which reported via X that approximately $2.4 million in USDC had been drained from Nemo’s systems. #PeckShieldAlert @nemoprotocol on @SuiNetwork has been exploited for $2.4M The hacker bridged $USDC via Circle from Arbitrum to 1 — PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) September 8, 2025 According to the blockchain security firm’s investigation, the hacker swiftly moved the stolen assets via Circle by bridging USDC on Arbitrum to Ethereum. $6.3M TVL Crashes 75% as Users Flee Nemo Protocol Nemo acknowledged the incident in a subsequent tweet, stating that the protocol had experienced a security breach the previous evening that affected its Market 2 experienced a security incident occurred last night, impacting the Market 3 are investigating the matter and have suspended all smart contract activity for the time 4 plan to share when more information becomes 5 Vault assets remain untouched.… — Nemo (@nemoprotocol) September 8, 2025 The development team confirmed that an investigation was in progress to identify the root cause of the 6 a precautionary measure, all smart contract operations were temporarily 7 attack’s impact was immediately 8 to DeFiLlama data , Nemo’s total value locked (TVL) collapsed to approximately $1.57 million from over $6.3 million before the breach.) and Yield Tokens (YTs) for yield speculation 9 to blockchain security auditor CertiK , security risks may arise from multiple sources, including coding errors, blockchain network vulnerabilities, and programming language 10 Blockchain Security Crisis Contributed to $2.37 Billion DeFi Losses in 2025 Notably, the Nemo security breach marks the third major hack targeting DeFi protocols this 11 in September, Venus protocol lost $13.5 million to attackers, followed by an $8.4 million theft from the Bunni protocol .
Similarly, in the Sui ecosystem, the Nemo incident follows another significant breach on the Layer-1 network from earlier this 12 May 22, Cetus Protocol, a prominent decentralized exchange and liquidity provider, suffered a $223 million 13 attacker leveraged an arithmetic overflow flaw in a third-party code library to complete the drain within 15 minutes. Moreover, these DeFi-focused attacks are on the rise in 2025. SlowMist’s mid-year analysis revealed that the blockchain sector experienced over $2.37 billion in losses across 121 security incidents during the first half of the 14 protocols alone accounted for 76% of these cases, although centralized exchanges recorded higher individual losses.
A complementary report from Hacken’s 2025 mid-year security assessment estimated total crypto industry losses at over $3.1 billion within the first six 15 control vulnerabilities, including misconfigured wallets and compromised legacy keys, represented 59% of these losses, while DeFi-specific smart contract exploits accounted for $263 million, or roughly 8%. A recent interview between Cryptonews and Mitchell Amador, founder and CEO of Immunefi, highlighted why conventional security methodologies prove inadequate in Web3’s open-source 16 explained that “Traditional audits, being static and pre-launch focused, fail to identify post-deployment vulnerabilities present in dynamic DeFi environments.” He advocated for bug bounty programs as a solution to incentivize ethical hackers, fundamentally restructuring cybersecurity economics to make defensive measures more lucrative than offensive ones.
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