Kerberus Finds Only 13% Of Web3 Security Solutions Provide Real-Time User Protection

by
Alisa Davidson

Printed: November 17, 2025 at 8:00 am Up to date: November 17, 2025 at 3:14 am

by Ana

Edited and fact-checked:
November 17, 2025 at 8:00 am

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In accordance with the brand new report from the Web3 safety agency Kerberus titled “The Human Issue: Actual-Time Safety Is the Unsung Layer of Web3 Cybersecurity,” solely 13% of current Web3 safety options present real-time safety for customers. Nearly all of options stay reactive or provide solely partial transaction monitoring, highlighting a major hole in an trade that has invested billions in safety infrastructure.

The report notes that through the first half of 2025, over $3.1 billion in losses had been recorded, together with the $1.46 billion breach of the Bybit trade, which represents the biggest single cryptocurrency heist in historical past. Excluding this incident, human-targeted assaults resembling phishing and social engineering accounted for $600 million in losses, representing 37% of the remaining $1.64 billion.

Most safety instruments give attention to auditing code previous to deployment or analyzing assaults post-event, thereby bettering protocol security, however customers stay largely unprotected on the exact second they conduct transactions.

Kerberus’s report examined the timing and intervention methods of main safety suppliers throughout the market, emphasizing the necessity for more practical real-time defenses.

“Our evaluation reveals the trade has a useful resource allocation drawback,” stated Alex Katz, CEO of Kerberus, in a written assertion. “Firms spend billions on safety measures that work earlier than or after an assault, however customers nonetheless lack safety through the important moments after they approve a transaction. Attackers exploit this window as a result of it’s undefended. Actual-time safety solely covers a minority of options,” he added.

Kerberus Report: Majority Of Web3 Safety Suppliers Rely On Preventative Measures

Kerberus carried out an evaluation of 61 distinguished Web3 safety suppliers to evaluate the timing and strategies of their interventions. The examine revealed that 87% of those suppliers provide preventative companies resembling code audits and forensic investigations, whereas solely 13% present energetic, real-time menace blocking on the transaction stage. Firms had been labeled utilizing publicly accessible info relating to their merchandise, deployment fashions, and whether or not their options stop assaults earlier than consumer approval of transactions or merely detect them afterward.

Though preventative safety measures are invaluable for assessing and mitigating dangers, trade knowledge signifies that 90% of exploited sensible contracts had already handed safety audits. Moreover, 44% of cryptocurrency thefts in 2024 had been linked to non-public key mismanagement, highlighting {that a} portion of losses happen in areas past the attain of code verification.

In April 2025, a US investor misplaced $330 million in Bitcoin resulting from social engineering, with no compromise to the pockets or underlying code. Analysis reveals that even with consumer coaching applications, phishing click on charges stay between 7% and 15%, demonstrating that customers proceed to be weak to manipulation regardless of current technical safeguards.

“Most safety instruments function exterior the transaction window,” stated Danor Cohen, CTO of Kerberus, in a written assertion. “They supply invaluable audits and post-breach investigations, however these have to be complemented by real-time options, which interpret consumer intent on the pockets stage throughout a dwell transaction and carry out a quick, deep scan with out interrupting the consumer. That’s a extremely difficult technical drawback that requires refined rip-off detection IP, which explains why real-time safety is obtainable by solely 13% of suppliers,” he added.

Actual-Time Safety Wanted As Web3 Safety Struggles To Maintain Tempo With Rising Consumer Base

The Web3 safety trade initially developed to handle the priorities of its early, experimental part, when vulnerabilities in sensible contract code represented the first threat. (At the moment, corporations targeted on auditing contracts and investigating breaches, constructing their enterprise fashions round these companies.

That strategy was applicable when the consumer base was small and technically proficient. Nonetheless, Web3 has since grown to 820 million energetic wallets, with 59% of customers managing their very own non-public keys. Though threats have advanced, a lot of the safety infrastructure has remained unchanged.

Belief is crucial for Web3 adoption, however customers at the moment lack confidence within the security of their funds. In conventional finance, shopper safety is constructed into the system: banks monitor transactions, block suspicious exercise, and reimburse victims of fraud. Customers depend on these safeguards as a result of they stop catastrophic losses from a single error.

Web3, in contrast, exposes customers to everlasting loss from a single mistake, with no computerized recourse. This atmosphere discourages retail participation in markets that require fixed vigilance and limits institutional funding in programs with out elementary fraud protections. Establishing real-time safety as normal infrastructure is due to this fact important for increasing the consumer base.

Kerberus launched these findings to offer data-driven benchmarks for real-time safety inside the Web3 safety panorama, highlighting the necessity for options that safeguard customers in the intervening time of transaction.

Alisa, a devoted journalist on the MPost, focuses on cryptocurrency, zero-knowledge proofs, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a eager eye for rising traits and applied sciences, she delivers complete protection to tell and have interaction readers within the ever-evolving panorama of digital finance.

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