A vulnerability in Wormhole, a cryptocurrency platform that allows users to transform one token into another, has been exploited by attackers who managed to "mine" some 000 wETH, or Wrapped Ether, on the Solana internet.
Simply put, a "wrapped" token is a token that does not reside in its native blockchain (for example, bitcoin can only be shared on the Ethereum internet if it is wrapped).
Of these one hundred and twenty zero wETH, the attackers transferred ninety-three seven hundred and fifty Ether to their native platform; At press time, the value of wETH is around €318 million, while the value of the Ether transferred is €248 million.
Too late to patch
Since the attack was discovered, the Wormhole developers have shut down the network and fixed the flaw.
deBridgeFinance co-founder Alex Smirnov says the developers noticed the vulnerability earlier and had a patch ready, but didn't have the time to incorporate it. This was not a malware issue and no internet endpoints were compromised.
Wormhole went on social media to offer the attackers a "white hat contract" and a $XNUMX million reward for discovering the flaw, if they return any and all funds. A white hat contract would mean that there would be no criminal investigation into the attack. However, as The Record reports, there's a good chance the police will get involved anyway.
In addition, the organization states that it will add more funds to the platform to "ensure that wETH is supported 1:1". We don't know where the funds would come from.
Wormhole acts as a bridge between Solana and multiple chains including Ethereum, Terra, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, and Oasis. Altogether, it has more than a billion dollars committed.
In terms of the number of tokens stolen in the attack, the Wormhole breach is sure to become the second largest decentralized finance (DeFi) platform attack of all time, and the largest this year. . But we are only in the month of February.
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Via: the file