This week has seen especially tumultuous events in the crypto space as various high-profile hacks have brought to the core grave flaws in both decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms and centralized exchanges. Below is an elaborative breakdown of notable incidents which resulted in the loss of over $50 million in just a week.
ShezmuTech – $4.9 Million Lost (September 21, 2024)
In what could be termed a remarkable breach for a budding DeFi project, ShezmuTech was sent reeling after it lost $4.9 million worth of ShezUSD tokens this week because of a contract vulnerability. This particular exploit revolved around a vault that accepted collateral that could be minted by just anybody thereby giving malicious individuals like the attacker scope to borrow as many Shez tokens were needed without question.
Investigations into the attack revealed that liquidity restrictions prevented the hacker from exchanging the entire sum, leaving approximately $700,000 untouched.
BingX – $43 Million Stolen (September 20, 2024)
BingX, a centralized crypto exchange, based in Singapore, has reported an attack on its hot wallet from which $43 million was taken away. BingX’s technical team detected abnormal network activity around 4:00 AM that led to the immediate cessation of the withdrawal services.
According to PeckShield, a security firm and on-chain analysis show that more than 360 different altcoins were among the stolen assets before they were immediately swapped for Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Coin (BNB). In spite of the attack’s seriousness, BingX reassured its users that most of their funds were stored in cold wallets to reduce overall damage. The exchange has promised to compensate customers while collaborating with security forces.
Banana Gun – Lost $1.9 Million (September 19, 2024)
Banana Gun, an online trading bot that is highly preferred by many, found itself in a loophole. The hackers were able to gain access to several user wallets associated with Banana Gun; this led to the theft of 563 ETH equalling $1.9 million. The Banana Gun team has been working to examine the breach, and the said platform has its Telegram bot is shutdown for the meantime. To date, 36 victims are known, and it is still unclear whether Banana Gun itself was hacked.
DeltaPrime – $5.98 Million Drained (September 16, 2024)
The other DeFi platform running on the Arbitrum network, DeltaPrime was breached earlier this week due to a leaked private key. An attacker was able to steal $5.98 million from DeltaPrime. The private key in question allowed the hacker to access all of the users’ funds that were kept at DeltaPrime’s Blue protocol.
Since then, DeltaPrime has admitted the event publicly and is now collaborating with security companies to track down what’s been taken. In a week alone, over $50 million was taken away, emphasizing the need for stringent security measures and live oversight more than ever.
The crypto world will be following attentively how investigations proceed as platforms such as BingX and ShezmuTech try to restore confidence among users while retrieving what has been lost.
