At least $ 611 million stolen in massive cross-channel hack

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Poly Network Cross-Channel Protocol was hacked for $ 611 million in the largest DeFi hack to date.

“We are sorry to announce that #PolyNetwork has been attacked on @BinanceChain @ethereum and @ 0xPolygon,” Poly Network tweeted today, adding: “We call on affected blockchain and crypto exchange miners to blacklist them. tokens from the above addresses. “

Poly Network is a protocol for exchanging tokens across multiple blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ontology. It was formed by an alliance between the teams behind several blockchain platforms, namely Neo, Ontology and Switcheo.

According to Igor Igamberdiev of The Block Research, the root cause of the hack was a crypto problem, which is usually not the case. Perhaps it looked like the Anyswap exploit, which saw $ 7.9 million stolen due to a hacker reversing the private key.

The hacking also had wider implications. As a result of this, O3, an exchange pool that uses Poly Network to exchange tokens between different blockchains, had to suspend its cross-chain functionality.

After the money

The stolen assets were $ 273 million in Ethereum tokens, $ 253 million in tokens on Binance Smart Chain and $ 85 million in USDC on the Polygon network.

Since the theft, Tether has blacklisted the USDT on Ethereum that was stolen in the attack, approximately $ 33 million in tokens. This means that they can no longer be moved. (USDT is a centralized stablecoin that can be frozen at will by the company behind it, similar to other stablecoins like USDC.)

Following the blacklisting, a crypto user sent a transaction to one of the addresses with the stolen funds telling the hacker not to use the USDT because it had been blacklisted. In response, the hacker sent 13.37 ETH ($ 42,000) to the user for information.

After the hack, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted, “We are aware of the [poly.network] feat that happened today. While no one controls BSC (or ETH), we coordinate with all of our security partners to proactively assist. There is no guarantee. We will do whatever we can. “

Track down the aggressor

Blockchain security firm SlowMist sent out a news alert saying it has already tracked down the identity of the attacker. It claims to know their email address, IP information, and their device’s fingerprint. The company said the attacker’s original funds were in monero (XMR), which was exchanged for BNB, ETH and MATIC and other tokens used to finance the attack.

SlowMist said this information was obtained through its partner, the Chinese crypto exchange Hoo, as well as other exchanges. Other crypto users claimed that the funds used for the attack came from the Hoo exchange.

SlowMist’s CTO, known as’ Blue ‘, told The Block:’ We said [Poly Network/O3] that we have information about the hacker, if they need it, we will share it with them. He added that he hoped for a “happy ending” for the saga.

Other crypto sleuths noticed that some of the hacker’s wallets show a lot of DeFi activity. They point out that the wallets have had many interactions with centralized exchanges, including FTX, Binance and OKEx, where the hacker may have undergone KYC measures.

The hacker then returned a transaction from one of the wallets containing the stolen funds to the same wallet. It included a message that read: IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A BILLION HACK IF I had moved the REMAINING SHITCOINS! AM I JUST SAVING THE PROJECT? NOT SO INTERESTED IN MONEY, NOW CONSIDERING RETURNING SOME TOKENS OR LEAVE THEM JUST HERE.

Update: More story updates have been added and the crypto paragraph has been clarified.

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2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All rights reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice.

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