Cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute says it stole $160 million worth of digital assets in cyber theft, though it assures customers everything is fine.
CEO Evgeny Gavoy confirmed on Twitter That Wintermute was suffering from “ongoing hacking” affecting its decentralized finance (DeFi) operations, while its centralized finance and over-the-counter trading operations were unaffected.
“Our services will be suspended today and possibly for the next few days and will be back to normal thereafter,” Gavoy said. He added that funds are safe for clients with Wintermute market maker agreements and that the company, which provides liquidity to the crypto coin world and trades billions of dollars a day, still “more than doubles in equity.” “ was financially solvent.
Interestingly, however, it has been reported that according to blockchain records, Wintermute has over $200 million in outstanding DeFi loans from various parties.
Gayvoy said 90 forms of digital assets totaling $160 million were taken in the rogues’ attack. That includes $114 million in USDC and USDT stablecoins, it said.
As with the last couple of crypto heists, Wintermute is treating the attack as a “white hat” operation, suggesting they are unwilling to prosecute if the attacker contacts the company, even potentially keeping the thief here leave some of their stolen money when the balance is returned.
Self-proclaimed “on-chain sniffer dog” ZachXBT claims to locate attacker’s Ethereum wallet with the accuracy and speed of Wintermute’s name, tweet His address comes just 11 minutes after Gayvoy’s first tweet announcing the hack. The stolen funds appear to still be in the wallet as of this writing and it is unlikely that Wintermute or anyone else would be able to determine the party responsible based on the wallet address alone.
to register Wintermute is contacted to learn more about the attack and whether the crook responded to his offer of an apology.
Welcome to the club, Wintermute
The hallucination of consent that is cryptocurrency is well sensed by cyber criminals who regularly opt out of heists involving tens of millions of dollars worth of tokens and coins that are almost impossible to solve.
Last month, cryptocurrency bridge service Nomad pulled $190.7 million worth of crypto tokens used to process cross-blockchain transfers, while $320 million worth of Ethereum was pulled from one earlier this year Bridge Service wormhole was stolen. was. Other hacks netted criminals up to $600 million stolen from the Ronin Bridge service in April.
Blockchain security firm CertiK estimates that about $1.3 billion worth of cryptocurrencies were lost to hacking and fraud in 2021 alone, a 2,500 percent increase from 2020.
The FBI urged caution regarding DeFi, saying that cybercriminals are “quick to exploit vulnerabilities in the DeFi platform to steal cryptocurrency, causing investors to lose money.”
According to the Fed’s warning, about $1.3 billion was stolen from DeFi operations between January and March this year – the equivalent of all of 2021.
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