More than $600 million has been stolen recently through a security vulnerability in the Poly Network platform. This is the largest cryptocurrency theft by hackers, so far!
Hackers exploited a critical vulnerability in the Poly Network, a platform that appears to connect different blockchains so they can work together.
Poly Network revealed the attack on Twitter and asked for communication with the hackers and urged them to “return what they hacked.
See Also: Why is the healthcare sector a target for ransomware attacks?
Blockchain is a distributed ledger that various cryptocurrencies are based on. Each digital currency has its own blockchain, and they are different from each other. Poly Network claims to be able to make these different blockchains work with each other.
Poly Network is a decentralized finance platform. DeFi (Decentralized finance) is a broad term that encompasses financial applications based on blockchain technology that aims to cut out intermediaries. Hence, it is called decentralized. Supporters of Polo Network say that it can make applications involving financial transactions more efficient and cheaper.
“The amount of money stolen is the largest in the history of DEFI,” Poly Network said in a recent tweet. The recent hack is the largest cryptocurrency theft by hackers.
Once the hackers stole the money, they began sending it to various other cryptocurrency addresses. Researchers at security firm SlowMist said that more than $610 million worth of cryptocurrency was transferred to three different addresses.
See Also: eCh0raix ransomware: QNAP and Synology NAS devices targeted!
Poly Network marked cryptocurrency exchanges to “blacklist tokens” originating from addresses linked to the hackers.
It is worth mentioning that approximately $33 million in Tether, which was part of the theft, has been frozen, according to the stablecoin issuer.
See Also: FlyTrap malware hacks thousands of Facebook accounts!
Meanwhile, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance, said he was aware of the attack. “Binance is coordinating with all our partners to proactively assist, but we cannot guarantee anything at this time.”.
"We will take legal action and urge the hackers to return the stolen funds," Poly Network said on Twitter.
SlowMist said in a tweet that its researchers have understood the hackers' mailbox, IP address, and device fingerprints and are monitoring potential identity clues related to the hacking attack on the Poly Network platform.
See Also: Is Your iPhone Safe from Pegasus Spyware?
Investigators concluded that the theft was likely a long-planned, organized, and prepared attack.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) is a key target for hackers
From the beginning of the year to July, DeFi-related hacking attacks totaled $361 million, a nearly three-fold increase from all of 2020, according to the firm CipherTrace.
DeFi-related fraud is also on the rise. In the first seven months of the year, it accounted for 54% of total crypto fraud volume, up from 3% for the entire previous year.
Information source: www.cnbc.com
