Hacks
Crypto privacy is in greater jeopardy than ever before — here’s why
Despite the latest technology, the world has yet to crack the code for privacy and security online. But that isn’t the only big problem we need to worry about. Hackers and robbers are tricking innocent users into giving up their private information as society becomes increasingly digital — and virtual currencies have a role in all of this. Cryptocurrencies smashed records in 2022, with the market topping $2 trillion for the first time ever. And while this has been greeted with excitement by current investors, it’s made others more wary. Why? Because as the asset class grows, it becomes more appealing to malicious actors. And for evidence of this, you only need to look at the growing number of users being targets of cryptocurrency robberies. The big question is this: if these cr...
Anonymous hacker served with restraining order via NFT
Law firms Holland & Knight and Bluestone have served a defendant in a hacking case with a temporary restraining order through a nonfungible token, marking the first known legal process to be facilitated by an NFT. The so-called “service token” or “service NFT” was served to an unnamed defendant in a hacking case involving LCX, a Liechtenstein-based cryptocurrency exchange that was hacked in January for almost $8 million. As Cointelegraph reported at the time, the attack compromised the platform’s hot wallets, resulting in the loss of Ether (ETH), USD Coin (USDC) and other cryptocurrencies. Holland & Knight has become the first law firm to serve a defendant by #NFT, which was created and airdropped by our #AssetRecovery Team. Learn more from our client @LCX. https://t.co/wWs2cOVVY1 ...
Yuga Labs’ BAYC, OtherSide Discord groups breached, over 145 ETH stolen
Yuga Labs, the creator of two of the most popular ape-themed nonfungible token (NFT) offerings — Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and OtherSide — witnessed yet another orchestrated phishing attack with investors losing over 145 Ether (ETH) or nearly $260,000 at the time of writing. OKHotshot, a blockchain detective and a member of the Crypto Twitter community, alerted crypto investors about the compromise of two official Discord groups linked to BAYC and OtherSide NFTs. BAYC & OtherSide discords got compromised‼️ Seems because Community Manager @BorisVagner got his account breached, which let the scammers execute their phishing attack. Over 145E in was stolen Proper permissions could prevent this pic.twitter.com/lCl2DfZQ0W — OKHotshot (@NFTherder) June 4, 2022 According to OKH...
Is there a secure future for cross-chain bridges?
The plane touches down and comes to a halt. Heading to passport control, one of the passengers stops at a vending machine to buy a bottle of soda — but the device is absolutely indifferent to all of their credit cards, cash, coins and everything else. All of that is part of a foreign economy as far as the machine is concerned, and as such, they can’t buy even a droplet of Coke. In the real world, the machine would have been quite happy with a Mastercard or a Visa. And the cash exchange desk at the airport would have been just as happy to come to the rescue (with a hefty markup, of course). In the blockchain world, though, the above scenario hits the spot with some commentators, as long as we swap traveling abroad for moving assets from one chain to another. While blockchains as decentraliz...
DeFi-ing exploits: New Chainalysis tool tracks stolen crypto across multiple chains
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis has released a new tool to track transactions across decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and multiple blockchains. Chainalysis launched a beta version of its Storyline software on Wednesday. Touted as a “Web3-native blockchain analysis tool,” Storyline aims to track and visualize smart contract transactions with a focus on nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and DeFi platforms. This is in line with the growing popularity and prevalence of NFTs and DeFi in the cryptocurrency space over the past year. Chainalysis provides blockchain analysis and annual reports on cryptocurrency crime trends and other analytics. The ever-changing landscape has seen DeFi and NFTs become important cogs in the ecosystem, with Chainalysis estimating the two sectors account for more ...
Axie Infinity’s Discord bot compromised, hackers issue fake minting message
Axie Infinity, the popular play-to-earn nonfungible token (NFT) game, faced another attack on its Discord server earlier on Wednesday, leading to a compromise of its MEE6 bot. MEE6 is a popular discord bot mainly used for automating roles and messages and is used by numerous crypto projects. The attackers used the compromised bot to add permissions to a fake Jiho account and later issued a fake announcement regarding a mint. The developers managed to remove the compromised MEE6 bot from the main server and deleted the fake messages as well. However, the official Twitter account of the project warned that many users might still see the fake message until they restart their Discord. 2/ The announcements have been deleted but some users may still see the message until they restart their Disco...
Etherscan, CoinGecko warn against ongoing MetaMask phishing attacks
Popular crypto analytics platforms Etherscan and CoinGecko have parallelly issued an alert against an ongoing phishing attack on their platforms. The firms began investigating the attack after numerous users reported unusual MetaMask pop-ups prompting users to connect their crypto wallets to the website. Based on the information disclosed by the analytics firms, the latest phishing attack attempts to gain access to users’ funds by requesting to integrate their crypto wallets via MetaMask once they access the official websites. Security Alert: If you are on the CoinGecko website and you are being prompted by your Metamask to connect to this site, this is a SCAM. Don’t connect it. We are investigating the root cause of this issue. pic.twitter.com/7vPfTAjtiU — CoinGecko (@coingeck...
DeFi attacks are on the rise — Will the industry be able to stem the tide?
The decentralized finance (DeFi) industry has lost over a billion dollars to hackers in the past couple of months, and the situation seems to be spiraling out of control. According to the latest statistics, approximately $1.6 billion in cryptocurrencies was stolen from DeFi platforms in the first quarter of 2022. Furthermore, over 90% of all pilfered crypto is from hacked DeFi protocols. These figures highlight a dire situation that is likely to persist over the long term if ignored. Why hackers prefer DeFi platforms In recent years, hackers have ramped up operations targeting DeFi systems. One primary reason as to why these groups are drawn to the sector is the sheer amount of funds that decentralized finance platforms hold. Top DeFi platforms process billions of dollars in transactions e...
Hacks Star Hannah Einbinder On Why Ava Doesn’t Do Standup
One of the best things about this era of television is how many different stories there are about complicated women, with Hacks standing out as the platonic ideal of this. The HBO Max comedy, which won multiple Emmys for its first season, returns for a second season this week, with world-famous comedy star Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) hitting the road with Ava (Hannah Einbinder), her writer/punching bag/adversary. The complicated relationship between the two women continues to drive the action this season, as both find themselves outside of their comfort zone and also caught up in a complex back-and-forth between love and hate. “Our writers have done such an amazing job of creating this world and taking it to places beyond our wildest dreams,” Einbinder tells Consequence about digging into t...
Finance Redefined: DeFi protocols lost $1.6B, EU to rethink DeFi approach, and more
The past week in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem saw many new developments from an adoption perspective and protocol developments. The European Commission added a new chapter on DeFi, showing the growing impact of the nascent ecosystem, while a county in the United States State of Virginia wants to put its pension fund in a DeFi yield. DeFi exploits became the center of attention again as recent research shows that in the first two quarters of 2022, DeFi protocols have lost $1.6 billion to various exploits. Rari Fuze hacker, who got away with $80 million worth of funds, was offered a $10 million bounty. The DeFi tokens also made a bullish comeback toward the end of the past week. However, the overall weekly performance remained in the red. European Commission report suggests ret...
Polkadot launches cross-chain messaging system to solve blockchain’s bridge problem
Blockchain platform Polkadot has launched a new cross-chain communications protocol, saying it will do away with cumbersome bridging mechanisms that have cost the crypto industry billions in cyber attacks. The newly launched XCM messaging system is intended to promote Polkadot’s multichain ecosystem, which is being built on the premise of full interoperability. XCM channels are said to be secured at the same level as Polkadot’s central hub, dubbed Relay Chain, and are also available for use by parachains. In other words, XCM will enable communication between parachains themselves as well as smart contracts. Future iterations of XCM will allow messages to be sent between parachains without having to be stored on the Relay Chain, thereby improving scalability and eliminating governance...
Rari Fuze hacker offered $10M bounty by Fei Protocol to return $80M loot
Decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Fei Protocol offered a $10 million bounty to hackers in an attempt to negotiate and retrieve a major chunk of the stolen funds from various Rari Fuse pools worth $79,348,385.61 — nearly $80 million. On Saturday, Fei Protocol informed its investors about an exploit across numerous Rari Capital Fuse pools while requesting the hackers to return the stolen funds against a $10 million bounty and a “no questions asked” commitment. We are aware of an exploit on various Rari Fuse pools. We have identified the root cause and paused all borrowing to mitigate further damage. To the exploiter, please accept a $10m bounty and no questions asked if you return the remaining user funds. — Fei Protocol (@feiprotocol) April 30, 2022 While the exact losses from the explo...
