Fintech Breach Statistics 2026: $11B Lost to Crypto Hacks

• Finance is still the most breached sector: Kroll found finance accounted for 20% of breaches it handled from June 2025 to June 2026 (27% in 2023), and IBM puts the average financial-sector breach at about $6.3M in 2026, versus a record $4.99M across all industries.
• Chainalysis data show about $11 billion stolen in crypto hacks and thefts since 2022: $3.7B (2022), $1.7B (2023), $2.2B (2024), and more than $3.4B in 2025 (January to early December), including the roughly $1.5B Bybit hack. The totals include personal wallet compromises as well as platform hacks.
• A SecurityScorecard study of 250 top fintechs (May 2025) found 41.8% of breaches impacting them originated from third-party vendors.
• Commonly exposed data: customer PII, including names, addresses, licenses, and financial transaction data.
• Notable cases: Revolut, Cash App, Ronin, Lemonade, Finastra, and Coinbase.
• Mitigation: prioritize penetration testing, continuous monitoring, and anti-phishing programs to stay ahead of attackers.

What are Fintech Breach Statistics?

Within broader cybersecurity statistics, fintech breach statistics refer to data on cybersecurity incidents affecting financial technology companies, banks, digital wallets, crypto exchanges, and insurtech companies. These stats include breach frequency, costs, data types exposed, and trends over time. In practical terms, we track how often fintech firms are attacked, what is stolen, and the financial impact. This matters because fintech handles sensitive financial data, so breaches can erode trust and incur huge losses.

Fintech breaches have spiked in recent years. Kroll's Data Breach Outlook found the financial sector jumped to 27% of all breaches handled in 2023, up from 19% in 2022, roughly 1 in 4 breaches. Healthcare edged ahead in 2024 (23% vs. 22%), but Kroll's 2026 outlook puts finance back on top at 20% of breaches handled between June 2025 and June 2026. Attackers see fintech as a high-value target: rich data and direct money transfers.

These statistics are critical now because fintech is booming. Rapid digital adoption (online banking, mobile wallets, crypto) expands the attack surface. High-profile incidents (see below) and regulatory fines underscore that breaches aren’t hypothetical: they happen frequently and cost millions. Companies like DeepStrike often advise clients that knowing the stats helps prioritize security: e.g. focusing on third party risk or insider threats if those drive most breaches.

Key Breach Trends & Data 2020-2026

Year by Year Breakdown

• 2020- 2021: Data is scarce, but early crypto hacks like Poly Network’s $611M exploit in 2021 hinted at trouble. Pandemic era shifts saw attackers probe banks and neobanks, and in Kroll’s data finance was already the most breached sector in 2021, at 22% of the breaches it handled.
• 2022: Crypto platforms suffered the largest losses. Chainalysis reports $3.7B stolen in crypto hacks in 2022, a record at the time, including the Ronin Network bridge hack ($625M, March 2022). Notable fintech breaches included:
  • Revolut UK: A flaw in its US payment systems let criminals take roughly $20M (about US$23M by some reports) in early 2022, and a separate September 2022 social engineering attack exposed data of 50,150 customers, including names, addresses, and emails.
  • Cash App USA: A former employee downloaded internal reports in December 2021 (disclosed April 2022), exposing names, brokerage account numbers and, for some, portfolio data of 8.2 million current and former customers.
  • PayPal: A December 2022 credential stuffing attack hit nearly 35K accounts (34,942), exposing names, addresses, SSNs, and dates of birth.
• Kroll's 2023 outlook ranked finance the 2nd most breached sector in 2022, at 19% of incidents. Overall, fintech was in the crosshairs of both targeted hacks and insider exploits.
• 2023: Finance regained the top spot. Kroll's data breach outlook reports finance at 27% of breaches handled in 2023. Crypto thefts continued: Chainalysis recorded $1.7B stolen in crypto hacks, down about 54% from 2022's $3.7B. Insurtech firms also had exposures that began this year:
  • Lemonade USA: A glitch in its auto insurance quote flow exposed about 190K driver's license numbers between April 2023 and September 2024; Lemonade disclosed it in April 2025.
• 2023 also saw a social engineering surge, including business email compromise (email compromise accounted for nearly 47% of the cases Kroll handled in Q3 2023), and supply chain attacks such as the CLOP MOVEit campaign hit financial institutions through third parties.
• 2024: Crypto theft hit $2.2B, up about 21% from 2023 across 303 incidents, driven by large exchange hacks such as DMM Bitcoin ($305M). Kroll's 2025 outlook found healthcare (23%) narrowly overtook finance (22%). In November 2024, fintech provider Finastra investigated a breach after a threat actor claimed about 400 GB of stolen data. SecurityScorecard found 18.4% of top fintechs had publicly reported breaches, and 28.2% of those had more than one incident.
• 2025 to 2026: In January 2025, NYDFS fined PayPal $2M over its 2022 credential stuffing incident. In May 2025, Coinbase disclosed that bribed support agents leaked limited customer data (names, masked SSNs, balances); no passwords, private keys or funds were directly exposed, but attackers used the data for social-engineering scams, and Coinbase estimated $180M to $400M in related costs and refused a $20M ransom demand. February 2025's roughly $1.5B Bybit hack pushed 2025 crypto theft above $3.4B, and Kroll's 2026 data puts finance back at the top of breach rankings.

Global Distribution

Fintech breaches are global. The US leads with many incidents: Coinbase, PayPal, Lemonade, Root, Cash App. The UK/EU have high profile cases such as Revolut and Finastra, plus strict GDPR fines. Asia Pacific sees frequent crypto exchange hacks such as Coincheck, WazirX, and KuCoin; Chainalysis attributes $660M in 2023, $1.34B in 2024, and at least $2.02B in 2025 to DPRK linked attackers. Emerging markets are also targeted: data leaks affect millions in Brazil, India, etc. Essentially, any country with active digital finance is at risk.

What Data Gets Stolen?

Typical fintech breaches leak:

• Personal Data PII: Names, addresses, emails, phone numbers are common. Revolut's 2022 breach leaked names, addresses and emails for 50K+ users. Lemonade's quote-flow exposure, disclosed in 2025, leaked driver's license numbers for about 190K people.
• Financial Data: Account numbers, card details, balances. Example: US payment processor Slim CD disclosed in 2024 that card data (names, card numbers, expiry dates) of about 1.7M people was exposed. Cash App insiders took account IDs and portfolio info of 8.2M users.
• Credentials: Less common, but highly damaging. The PayPal attack obtained logins via credential stuffing affecting 35K accounts. In crypto, stolen private keys can instantly drain wallets e.g. Ronin, Wormhole.
• Specialized Data: Insurers' online quote tools have leaked driver's license numbers and dates of birth: Root and Noblr paid New York AG penalties over quote-tool leaks, and Lemonade agreed to a $10.5M class action settlement in 2026. Crypto breaches often don't expose user data, they just lose funds.

Financial Impact

The costs are staggering. Direct theft in crypto reached billions per year: Chainalysis tallies $3.7B stolen in 2022, $1.7B in 2023, $2.2B in 2024, and more than $3.4B in 2025. Meanwhile, remediation costs for companies run to millions. IBM's Cost of a Data Breach reports put finance firms at $5.90M per breach in 2023 versus $4.45M overall, and at about $6.3M in 2026, second only to healthcare, against a record $4.99M global average. Breach costs also build over time: IBM's 2025 report put the average breach lifecycle at 241 days.

Beyond direct losses, regulators are punishing breaches. For example, PayPal paid $2.0M to NYDFS in 2025 over a 2022 credential stuffing incident, and auto insurers Root and Noblr paid $975K and $500K to the New York AG over quote data leaks affecting tens of thousands of New Yorkers.

Customers also bear costs: identity theft, fraud, leaked crypto funds. Unsurprisingly, victims of Lazarus Group hacks have lost millions.

Finance breaches rose sharply to 27% of Kroll cases in 2023, and finance is again the top sector at 20% in Kroll's June 2025 to June 2026 data. IBM puts the average financial-sector breach at about $6.3M in 2026 ($5.90M in 2023). Chainalysis: about $11 billion in crypto stolen from 2022 to 2025. SecurityScorecard: 41.8% of breaches at top fintechs came via third parties. These figures highlight why fintech security is now mission critical.

Breach Incidents by Fintech Subsector

The table below compares example breaches across fintech industries:

This mix of examples illustrates that everyone is at risk. Crypto bridges see multi million thefts of coins. Challenger banks suffer both fraud and data leaks. Payment apps face insider leaks and credential stuffing. And even service providers like Finastra can spill sensitive files for top banks. The stolen data ranges from basic PII to massive sums of money.

Why Fintech Breaches Are Rising

Several factors fuel fintech breach stats:

• High Value Targets: Fintech holds both data and money, so criminals are incentivized. Attackers seek quick profit stealing crypto or funds or juicy PII for resale.
• Complex Attack Surface: Fintech often involves many systems: web/mobile apps, APIs, cloud services, third party integrations, IoT devices, ATMs, PoS terminals. This complexity creates vulnerabilities: in fact, SecurityScorecard finds the most common weaknesses are application security and DNS health, with 46.4% of fintechs scoring lowest in application security.
• Third Party Risk: Fintechs rely on vendors, cloud platforms, payment processors, data brokers. A single partner breach can cascade: 41.8% of breaches at top fintechs originated via third party vendors, and another 11.9% via fourth parties. Supply chain attacks such as the CL0P MOVEit campaign have hit banks and other financial institutions through third parties.
• Insider Threats: As seen with Cash App, a rogue employee can cause huge leaks. Fintech insiders have access to critical data and should be monitored.
• Legacy Security Gaps: New fintech startups may push features faster than security. Common coding flaws (SQL injection, SSRF, etc.) and misconfigurations remain. For example, API bugs have led to breaches such as Revolut’s refund flaw.
• Social Engineering: Financial users are targets for phishing. Business email compromise remains a common entry point, and banks often see credential stuffing or phishing induced account takeovers. See our account takeover case study for a full account takeover chain we found and disclosed.
• Crypto Specific Risks: Crypto and DeFi use smart contracts and private keys. Bugs or poor key management lead to multi million hacks. Cross-chain bridges such as Ronin ($625M in 2022) have been among the costliest targets.

In short, fintech firms are rich targets with hard problems. Attackers adapt rapidly, so continuous vigilance is needed.

Mitigations: Security Best Practices

The good news: knowing these stats guides defenses. Fintech security teams can take action:

1. Penetration Testing Regularly simulate attacks on fintech apps and networks. DeepStrike recommends investing in robust penetration testing services and continuous penetration testing platforms to uncover flaws before attackers do. For example, testing payment APIs, mobile apps, and cloud configurations can find the OWASP Top 10 issues that fintech breaches often exploit. PTaaS Penetration Testing as a Service provides ongoing pen tests, ideal for dynamic fintech environments.
2. Secure Coding & Reviews Follow OAuth security best practices for authorizing transactions and use token audits to avoid JWT exploits. Enforce strong input validation to prevent common web vulnerabilities like SQL injection or SSRF. Use automated tools SAST/DAST alongside manual code reviews.
3. Threat Modeling & Red Teaming Think like an attacker. Conduct red team exercises to test phishing resilience see our phishing attack trends and statistics and incident response. Simulate supply chain attacks to see if vendors could bring you down.
4. Strong Authentication Enforce MFA everywhere. Phishing and credential reuse still drive many breaches. Use identity solutions e.g. device based login, behavioral analytics. Penetration testing can verify whether MFA, rate limiting and bot defenses actually block account takeover paths.
5. Third Party Risk Management Vet and monitor all vendors. Since 41.8% of breaches at top fintechs came via third-party vendors, fintechs must implement strict vendor security reviews and require breach notifications/contracts. If a key provider shows vulnerabilities, isolate or replace it quickly. This ties to broader supply chain attack statistics concerns.
6. Data Encryption & Tokenization Store PII and financial data encrypted at rest and in transit. If credentials or files are stolen, encryption can prevent misuse. Tokenize card data PCI standards so breaches leak useless tokens instead of raw numbers.
7. Backup & Incident Response Keep immutable backups to resist ransomware and regularly test incident plans. This helps limit downtime and costs after a breach. For compliance, PCI DSS v4.0.1 requires penetration testing at least once every 12 months (Requirement 11.4) and annual incident response plan testing (Requirement 12.10.2). HIPAA requires contingency planning, with testing and revision procedures as an addressable specification, and SOC 2 auditors look for evidence that controls are tested; neither SOC 2 nor HIPAA explicitly requires penetration testing. See our PCI DSS, SOC 2, and HIPAA testing guides.
8. Employee Training Teach staff to spot phishing, secure development, and proper data handling. Many breaches exploit human error. This ties into phishing trends and statistics and human factor mitigation.

In practice, fintech security is not a one-off checkbox; it’s an ongoing practice. Leveraging Penetration Testing Services and secure engineering is not just ideal but necessary. Even simple fixes, such as patching servers, closing idle ports, and DDoS protection add up. Given the stakes, fintechs should budget for continuous testing and advanced monitoring tools like XDR or CSPM. In short, secure by design must be a priority.

Fintech breach statistics show one thing clearly: the threat is real and escalating. From massive crypto thefts to sneaky API vulnerabilities, the attacks of 2025 and 2026 demand more than just awareness, they require action. The figures above show that breaches in fintech cost millions and erode trust. The solutions are proactive: regular Penetration Testing Services, vigilant monitoring, and strong security culture. Institutions connected to the payment network should also plan for SWIFT CSP penetration testing as part of their annual attestation cycle.

Ready to Strengthen Your Defenses? The threats of 2026 demand readiness. If you need to validate your security posture, identify hidden risks, or build a resilient defense, DeepStrike can help. Our team of expert penetration testers and red teamers provides clear, actionable guidance to protect your fintech business.

Explore our penetration testing services to see how we uncover vulnerabilities before attackers do. Drop us a line we’re always ready to dive in.

About the AuthorMohammed Khalil is a Cybersecurity Architect at DeepStrike, specializing in advanced penetration testing and offensive security operations. With certifications including CISSP, OSCP, and OSWE, he has led numerous red team engagements, focusing on cloud security, application vulnerabilities, and adversary emulation. His work involves dissecting complex attack chains and developing resilient defense strategies for clients in the finance, healthcare, and technology sectors.

FAQs

• How common are fintech data breaches?

Very common. Finance topped Kroll's breach counts at 27% of cases in 2023 and is again the most breached sector at 20% of cases from June 2025 to June 2026. SecurityScorecard found 18.4% of top fintechs had publicly reported breaches, and 28.2% of those had more than one. With many high profile incidents each year, assume any fintech is at risk without proper security.

• What data is most often stolen in fintech breaches?

Mostly customer PII and financial info. Attackers grab names, emails, addresses, SSNs, and credit card details. Crypto hacks typically steal funds, not personal info. Insurtech quote tools have leaked driver's license numbers and dates of birth. Any stored credentials or tokens are especially valuable if compromised.

• How much does a fintech breach cost?

Extremely costly. IBM's 2026 Cost of a Data Breach report puts the financial sector at about $6.3M per breach, second only to healthcare and well above the $4.99M global average (it was $5.90M in 2023). Those costs include remediation, fines, legal fees, and customer churn. Crypto losses dwarf that, with billions stolen, but even a single data leak can bring penalties and settlements, such as PayPal's $2M NYDFS fine and Lemonade's $10.5M class action settlement.

• Are crypto exchanges targeted more than banks?

Crypto platforms see larger heists due to stored funds on chain. For example, Chainalysis tallies about $11B stolen in crypto hacks and thefts from 2022 to 2025 (including personal wallet compromises, not only platform hacks), with more than $3.4B in 2025 alone. Traditional banks generally deal more in data leaks, PII exposure, and account takeover. Both face threats: crypto = big money hacks, banks = third party attacks and fraud. In practice, both must secure smart contract code, keys, and customer data.

• How do phishing and social engineering affect fintech security?

Greatly. Phishing and business email compromise are top entry points. Many fintech users fall for scams that lead to credential theft. Fintech firms train employees and clients on these threats. We link to phishing attack trends and statistics for more context.

• Can small fintech startups afford these protections?

They must try. Breaches at startups can be catastrophic. Solutions like cloud penetration testing or managed security services SOC as a service scale to budget. Regulators also push smaller firms to follow frameworks NIST, ISO 27001. Our advice: prioritize security early it’s cheaper than cleaning up a breach later.