Last Updated on 22/11/2021 by Khushi
It came as a shock as the hackers set a record in stealing cryptocurrency worth as high as $600 millions. Blockchain site Poly Network addressed the issue claiming that hackers took advantage of a pertaining vulnerability in the system which led to a theft of thousands of digital tokens.
A letter posted on Twitter urged the thieves to return the illegally procured assets by ethical means of communication.
The cyberheist can be termed as one of the “biggest in defi history”, seeking help from the law enforcement authorities against this major economic crime.
EU will be making Bitcoin transfers traceable, to be able to avoid such thefts in future.
As per what Poly Network said, the hacker had exploited a ” vulnerability between contract calls”, creating blockage of depositing of the coins, after millions of dollars in tokens were moved to another crypto-wallet.
$267 million in Ether, $252 million in Binance coins, and $85 million in USDC tokens have been taken.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao acknowledged that his company had been hacked, but noted that there was only so much he could do.
He stated that the group was “coordinating with all our security partners to proactively help”.
“There are no guarantees,” he added.
On Twitter, Poly Network announced that $260 million of the stolen cash had been restored, but $353 million remained unclaimed.
According to digital messages given by Elliptic, a crypto monitoring firm, and Chainalysis, a person claiming responsibility for the breach said they did it “for fun” and wanted to “highlight the weakness” before others could exploit it.
The suspected hacker added that returning the tokens was “always the goal,” adding, “I am not extremely interested in money.”
The hacker or hacker has not been identified, and Reuters was unable to verify the communications’ validity.
The hassles of laundering stolen crypto on such a large scale, according to Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, may have influenced the decision to return the money.
