The native Holograph blockchain token fell by 80% after an attacker hacked the protocol operator's smart contract and issued 1 billion HLG worth $14.4 million.
On June 14, the network team confirmed the attack and reported a bug fix. The project also appealed to centralized exchanges and law enforcement agencies to freeze stolen assets.
The Holograph Operator contract has been exploited by a malicious actor, enabling the hacker to mint 1 billion additional HLG
The team has patched the initial exploit & is working with exchange partners to lock the malicious accounts
The team has launched an investigation & is…
According to Etherscan, the hacker released 1 billion HLG in nine transactions. He launched the first batch on June 13 at about 10:00 (Kiev/Moscow time).
After 10 minutes, the token began to fall, falling from $0.014 to $0.002. At the time of writing, the coin has recovered to $0.006.
The 15-minute HLG/USDT chart of the Binance exchange. Data: TradingView.At the current rate of 1 billion HLG, it is estimated at about $6.8 million. However, the hacker began converting his created coins into USDT four hours after the attack.
Matt Casto, an analyst at CMT Digital venture capital company, believes that the attacker was a "rogue developer" who, 26 days before the incident, financed the recipient's address of the HLG issued.
Looks like a rogue dev who funded the address 26 days ago. That address was the the one who received the minted supply. https://t.co/30E8Bqwkwt pic.twitter.com/Pv7kztTvNK
— Matt (@mcasto_) June 13, 2024Fake Crypto Exchange
On June 13, the Securities Division of the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) issued a warning about the fake Ethfinance trading platform.
Initially, the agency received a complaint from an investor. He discovered an advertisement for the exchange on the LinkedIn social network and transferred about $310,000 from his "DeFi wallet" to it.
After trading, the user decided to withdraw part of the deposit and profit, but was unable to do so. Ethfinance technical support advised you to make an additional deposit. However, the client refused and was blocked.
The DFI said the case is similar to a "prepayment scam" — a type of scam in which victims are promised money, goods or services in exchange for a small down payment. At the same time, the regulator did not confirm the charges.
The DFI fraud tracker shows that the platform was also mentioned in another complaint. A California resident reported a loss of more than $ 165,000 after he was promised online to learn how to trade crypto options.
Data: DFPI.The investor realized the situation when the "CEO of customer support" in Telegram asked him to send 25% of the profits as "taxes" to complete the withdrawal of funds.
A bounty on the head
The UwU Lend DeFi protocol team offered $5 million to identify the hacker.
"The deadline for the return of the funds you stole has expired. A reward of $5 million will be awarded to the first person to identify and discover you," the on-chain message says.
The developers promised to pay the funds to Ethereum before the return of the stolen assets and the initiation of proceedings against the hacker.
UwU Lend has been attacked twice in a week. On June 10, the platform was hacked for $19.3 million. Then the protocol was suspended a couple of hours after the incident.
On June 13, the hacker withdrew another $3.72 million in various assets. Both hacks involved the same wallet address. Initially, UwU Lend offered the hacker to return 80% of the stolen funds, but there was no response.
The native token of the UWU protocol sank by 18% after the attacks — from $3.1 to $2.5, according to CoinGecko.
Recall that in early June, the Velocore decentralized exchange was attacked. The hacker withdrew approximately $6.8 million in Ethereum from the pools in the Linea and zkSyncEra L2 networks.
In May, the Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin lost $305 million in a hack. The platform intends to attract financial support to compensate users.