en
Back to the list

Wormhole Loses $320M in Second-Largest DeFi Hack Ever

source-logo  cryptoknowmics.com 03 February 2022 03:00, UTC

Wormhole, a popular cross-chain bridge between Solana and other DeFi-based blockchain networks has been hacked for about 120,000 wETH (wrapped Ether) worth $320 million, making it the second-largest DeFi hack to date. On Wednesday, the team behind the project officially confirmed that the bridge is currently down while the team investigates a potential exploit. In a follow-up tweet, Wormhole confirmed that the vulnerability was patched and were working to get the network up and running again. https://twitter.com/wormholecrypto/status/1489036273012682753 The attack approximately took place at 6:24pm UTC on Feb. 2 where the hacker minted 120,000 wETH (WETH) on Solana, then redeemed 93,750 WETH for ETH worth $254 million onto the Ethereum network at 6:28 pm UTC. Since then, the hacker has used some funds to buy SportX (SX), Meta Capital (MCAP), Finally Usable Crypto Karma (FUCK), and Bored Ape Yacht Club Token (APE). The remaining WETH was swapped for SOL and USDC on Solana. Currently, the attacker's Solana wallet holds 432,662 SOL worth $44 million.

Wormhole Offers $10M Bug Bounty to Hackers

Wormhole is a DeFi protocol that allows users to bridge assets across Terra, Solana, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche and Polygon without the use of a centralized exchange (CEX). When a user transfers assets from one blockchain to another, the DeFi platform locks the transaction and mints a wrapped version of the token to its final chain. About an hour after the exploit, Wormhole offered the hacker a $10 million bug bounty in an on-chain message in return for the funds:

“We noticed you were able to exploit the Solana VAA verification and mint tokens. We’d like to offer you a whitehat agreement, and present you a bug bounty of $10 million for exploit details, and returning the wETH you’ve minted.”

This is the second smart contract exploit after hackers made off with $80 million from decentralized finance protocol Qubit Finance last week.

cryptoknowmics.com