New Delhi, Mar 14 (IANS): Cyber-criminals have stolen about $197 million in cryptocurrencies from crypto lending platform Euler Finance.

Blockchain monitoring firm PeckShield tweeted that Euler Finance was exploited in a flurry of transactions on Ethereum, "leading to the loss of $197 million from the project."

Independent researcher ZachXBT posted on Twitter that this is "almost certainly" an attack by malicious hackers.

"We are aware and our team is currently working with security professionals and law enforcement. We will release further information as soon as we have it," Euler Finance said in a tweet.

Several Euler investors went to social media platforms to post about their plight.

"Almost 1.3 million USD gone. I thought they were the most secure lending protocol, I never liked Michael on twitter, but I wouldn't even imagine them releasing updates without prior notice or audits,a a Euler investor wrote on Discord.

Euler's crypto token fell drastically after the news of the cyber attack.

Cryptocurrency hackers stole $3.8 billion last year, making it the worst year on record for crypto investors, up from $3.3 billion in 2021.

According to Blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis, October was the biggest single month ever for cryptocurrency hacking, as $775.7 million was stolen in 32 separate attacks.

DeFi (Decentralised Finance) protocols as victims accounted for 82.1 per cent of all cryptocurrency stolen by hackers -- a total of $3.1 billion -- up from 73.3 per cent in 2021. Of that $3.1 billion, 64 per cent came from cross-chain bridge protocols specifically.