Cybercriminals stole $120.3 million (roughly Rs 900 crore) in cryptocurrency by hacking into decentralised finance (DeFi) protocol Badger DAO. The attack was identified on November 1.
Badger DAO, often referred to as BADGER is an open-source, decentralized automated organization that is focused on developing infrastructure and products in order to simplify the overall use of Bitcoin, across Ethereum along with many other blockchains.
The hack, first discovered by blockchain security firm PeckShield, tracked down the missing funds. According to the security firm, the company lost at least 2,100 Bitcoin and 151 Ethereum. It should be noted that Bitcoin is currently trading at $59,900 (roughly Rs 45 lakh) per coin, Ethereum’s present value is $4,800 (roughly Rs 36 lakh) per token.
Meanwhile, Badger also officially confirmed the breach, and paused all smart contracts as well as stopped any asset withdrawal. On Twitter, the Badger team said: “Our investigation is ongoing and we will release further information as soon as possible.”
Following the news of the attack, the native token of the protocol, “BADGER”, tumbled by 16 percent and is currently trading at $20 (roughly Rs 1,500) according to CoinMarketCap.
Badger said that it has “retained data forensics experts Chainalysis to explore the full scale of the incident and authorities in both the US and Canada have been informed and company is cooperating fully with external investigations as well as proceeding with its own.”
This is not the first time that cybercriminals have attacked DeFi platforms. In August, hackers pulled off the biggest ever cryptocurrency heist on Tuesday, stealing $613 million in digital coins from token-swapping platform Poly Network, only to return $260 million worth of tokens less than 24 hours later.
Earlier, in November, US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a warning against cybercriminals that are using Bitcoin ATMs and QR codes to defraud unsuspecting individuals. The FBI said that it has witnessed an increase in scammers directing victims to use physical cryptocurrency ATMs and digital QR codes to complete payment transactions.
The agency also pointed out that the decentralised nature of cryptocurrency makes it difficult to recover the victim’s money, with much of the stolen funds being sent overseas right away instead of being tracked and verified by a bank.
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