A hacker has stolen around $24 million worth of “cryptocurrency assets” from decentralized finance (DeFi) service Harvest Finance, an online portal that allows users to invest in cryptocurrencies and then apply price variations for small profit.
The hack took place today and was confirmed almost immediately by Harvest Finance administrators in messages posted on the company's Twitter account and Discord channel .
According to these messages, a hacker invested large amounts of “cryptocurrency assets” in service and then used a cryptographic exploit to transfer funds to his own wallets.
In total, the hacker stole $13 million worth of USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT), according to a “transaction ID” published by Harvest Finance administrators.
Two minutes after the attack, the hacker returned $2.5 million back to the platform, but the reason behind this operation remains unclear.
The company claims to have identified the attacker
In a message posted on Discord, Harvest Finance claimed that the attack left “a significant amount of the attacker’s personal information ” and described him as “well-known in the cryptocurrency community.”
In a series of messages posted on Twitter, Harvest Finance admitted that the attack was carried out by its mistake and left the door open for the attacker to return the money without consequences.
The company is now offering a $400,000 bounty to anyone who can find a way to return the stolen money. After the first 36 hours, the bounty will be reduced to $100,000.
