Maxi-cyber robbery in the world of decentralized finance. A hacker attack he subtracted approx $612 million in cryptoassets: by far the largest theft ever committed in this sector. The victim is poly network, a platform that connects different blockchains to make them work together. The news was released by the company itself in a tweet:
“Dear hackers – we read – we want to establish communication with you and invite you to return the hacked goods. The amount of money you hacked is the largest in DeFi history. Law enforcement agencies in each country will treat this case as a major economic crime and you will be prosecuted. It would indeed be very imprudent for you to make further transactions. The money you stole belongs to thousands of members of the crypto community. You should talk to us to find a solution."
In more technical terms, Poly Network is a decentralized finance protocol which allows you to exchange virtual tokens through different blockchains. By decentralized finance we mean a financial system that does not provide for the presence of central intermediaries such as banks, but which rather uses smart contracts based on the blockchain.
After the complaint of Poly Network, the cyber security company slowmist always wrote on Twitter that the hackers' emails were found - as well as their IDs, IP addresses and fingerprints used for authentication on the devices - but also that "the attack was probably prepared for a long time and scrupulously".
SlowMist said the hackers transferred more than $610 million worth of cryptocurrencies to three different addresses. Poly Network then asked cryptocurrency traders to block tokens from the three addresses linked to the criminals.
Analyst firm CipherTrace notes that in the first seven months of 2021 cyberattacks related to decentralized finance have stolen everything 361 million dollars, almost triple the value recorded in all of 2020.
For DeFi specialist company Pulse, what attracts hackers is the amount of money contained in decentralized finance applications: about 80 billion dollars.
Meanwhile, the recovery of cryptocurrencies continues, which had suffered heavy declines in recent weeks. In the morning, the Bitcoin gains nearly 2%, to $46.340, while theEtherum it climbs back about 3%, to $3.230.
