2024-05-11
The thief who stole 1,155 WBTC from victim transferred 96% of funds back to the victim after negotiations.
Blockchain data shows that nearly
23,000 ETH was transferred to victim's account. After negotiations took place on
May 10.
This thief launched address poisoning
attack to tricked victims into sending 1,155 WBTC (worth $68 million at the
time of action), returned almost all of the stolen money, Blockchain data shows,
but the WBTC had already been exchanged for Ether over the period and the price
of ETH dropped.
However, the attackers returned
approximately 22,960.07 ETH worth $65.7 million, which represents more than 96%
of the value of the originally stolen funds.
At 8:47 AM UTC on May 10, multiple
wallets began sending ETH to victim wallets. The first transfer was 29.999 ETH
($87,199 based on the current ETH price). The next day, more than 225
transactions were made from various wallets sending ETH to the victims'
wallets. The value of each transaction ranges from 29 to 67 ETH.
The transfer of the funds back took place after negotiations between the victim and the attacker.
The victims initially agreed to allow
the attackers to keep 10% of their funds as bounty, however, this agreement
appears to be no longer in negotiations. This is because attackers have
returned more than 90% at the time of publishing.
In a report coming from Match Systems,
a blockchain security platform, it claims to have discovered information that
brings together the thieves and victims, saying security experts are working to
determine who the attacker is.
Match Systems has conducted a detailed
analysis of the incident and found several opportunities to strengthen the
negotiating position in subsequent communications with the attackers.
As a result, “the hackers returned a total of 22,960 ETH of the stolen funds to the victims, and the report states that the victim does not have a complaint against the attacker.
Wrapped
Bitcoin (WBTC) is a bridge between Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains.
Essentially, WBTC is Bitcoin wrapped as an ERC-20 token, allowing it to be used
within Ethereum's decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.
This means
that Bitcoin holders can now engage with DeFi applications, taking part in
activities like lending, borrowing, and yield farming, which were previously
inaccessible to them.
The process of wrapping involves users depositing Bitcoin with a custodian, who then mints WBTC at a 1:1 ratio, ensuring that each WBTC is backed by an equivalent amount of Bitcoin.
This system not
only maintains the peg between WBTC and Bitcoin but also enhances liquidity and
functionality across different blockchain platforms.
