A cutesy and unexpecting crypto video game has just become part of the world’s largest cryptocurrency hack but is now getting help from Binance.
This new cryptocurrency hack is now the most significant crypto robbery hitting $625 million, $25.5 million in USD coins and 173,600 Ethereum tokens, which blows some past robberies out of the water!
The particular block-chain infrastructure that was the target of the hack comes from Vietnamese developer Sky Mavis called the Ronin Network, an “Ethereum-linked sidechain” that is used alongside a new age version of Neopets called Axie Infinity.
The breach that allowed the mysterious user to make two very serious withdrawals took place on the 23rd of March but was only just discovered, which seems like a long time to be missing $622 million.
The blog post from Ronin Network states, “The attacker used hacked private keys in order to forge fake withdrawals,” and that “We discovered the attack this morning after a report from a user being unable to withdraw 5k ETH from the bridge.”
There has been a security breach on the Ronin Network.https://t.co/ktAp9w5qpP
— Ronin (@Ronin_Network) March 29, 2022
The post address the next steps by saying, “We are working with law enforcement officials, forensic cryptographers, and our investors to make sure all funds are recovered or reimbursed. All of the AXS, RON, and SLP on Ronin are safe right now.”
In an attempt to address concerns, Ronin said, “As we’ve witnessed, Ronin is not immune to exploitation and this attack has reinforced the importance of prioritizing security, remaining vigilant, and mitigating all threats.”
They finished with, “We know trust needs to be earned and are using every resource at our disposal to deploy the most sophisticated security measures and processes to prevent future attacks. ”
There are ways to get their stolen funds back but it doesn’t sound promising if a single user was able to make two significant withdrawals initial unnoticed.
Update (April 8, 2022):
Developers of Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis, have announced that Binance has run a funding campaign to raise $150 million to restore some of the money that was lost.
CEO Trung Nguyen said in a statement that: “Sky Mavis is committed to reimbursing all of our users’ lost funds and implementing rigorous internal security measures to prevent future attacks,“.
Though it’s not the full amount, this is still huge. Imagine if a bank did this if they lost your money? You simply can’t.
