Crypto caper results in approximately $300 million stolen, bug bounty offered to perpetrator
It’s a heist for the record books.
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What you need to know
The potential dangers of cryptocurrency are once again on display, as cryptocurrency portal Wormhole just admitted it got robbed of 120,000 wETH, which translates to somewhere in the neighborhood of $320 million.
As reported byEllipticandconfirmed by Wormholeitself, the blockchain bridge has found itself out of a substantial amount of cryptocurrency tokens thanks to someone exploiting its system to snag a massive chunk of virtual change (viaPC Gamer).
According to analysis from@samczsunon Twitter, the attacker’s play was possible thanks to Wormhole failing to properly validate input accounts, leading to spoofed guardian signatures successfully enabling the minting of 120,000 wETH.
Elliptic claims the theft’s immense size makes it the fourth-largest cryptocurrency heist of all time. With the added qualifier of “biggest heists for a DeFi service,” this score takes second place in the all-time records.
1/2All funds have been restored and Wormhole is back up.We’re deeply grateful for your support and thank you for your patience.1/2All funds have been restored and Wormhole is back up.We’re deeply grateful for your support and thank you for your patience.— Wormhole🌪 (@wormholecrypto)February 3, 2022February 3, 2022
“All funds have been restored and Wormhole is back up,” Wormhole said in a recent tweet thread, confirming the vulnerability has been patched. “The team is working on a detailed incident report and will share it asap.”
Elliptic’s report indicates that Wormhole offered the hacker “$10 million for exploit details, and returning the wETH.”
With this case in mind, it’s also worth noting that cryptocurrency is, slowly but surely, making its way into more normal day-to-day life operations.AMC has shown a fondnessfor crypto, as has El Salvador, which is building aliteral Bitcoin City. If you’re not afraid of the risks, consider learninghow to mine crypto.
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Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He’s a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author ofCold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.
