After the $28M hack on Deribit Exchange, an unknown exploiter uses the decentralized cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash to move stolen funds. Hackers made $657 million from 44 DeFi attacks last month after paying back about $100 million to multiple platforms.
In total, Deribit hot wallet hackers transferred 1.61 ether (ETH), or around $2.5 million, to Tornado Cash, according to data from Ethereum block explorer Etherscan. The funds were moved in 17 transactions, the first of which took place on November 5 – just days after Deribit was hacked.
The amount of money transferred to Tornado Cash was only a fraction of all the stolen ETH at the hacker’s address, as it had a balance of 7,501 ETH ($11.8 million) at the time of writing this article. Hackers initially sent 9,080 ETH to the address on November 2nd. Blockchain analytics platform PeckShield originally reported outbound Tornado Cash transactions on Nov. 5. At that point, the amount of money leaving the hacked ETH wallet was only around $350,000.
Deribit Exchange officially announced that on November 2nd, its platform suffered a hot wallet hack that lost a total of $28 million across multiple cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), ETH, and US Dollar Coin (USDC). Has. The exchange had to halt all payouts to ensure adequate security after the hack and promised to cover any losses. The platform then resumed regular withdrawals of BTC, ETH, and USDC on November 2 and migrated all hot wallets to digital asset security platform Fireblocks. Deribit emphasized that users should not send funds to their previous BTC, ETH, and USDC addresses, but should use the new Fireblocks deposit addresses.
October Plagued with Crypto Exploits Up to $657 Million
The last month has been quite scary for the cryptocurrency industry as it has seen the most DeFi hacks of the year. While October was expected to be an “Uptober,” it quickly became a “Hacktober” as cybercriminals looted top crypto projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
A recent tweet from blockchain security firm PeckShield noted that October was the most hacked month of the year. The DeFi market suffered 44 attacks affecting 53 protocols in its tenth month and hackers made $760.2 million net. According to PeckShield, the largest amount of money was stolen by breaking the BNB chain, with hackers wiping up to $586 million from the blockchain network. It was followed by Solana-based cryptocurrency lender Mango Markets, which was hit with $100 million.
Among the many losses, PeckShield noted that the hackers returned about $115 million from the stolen funds to the exploited platform. One such example is the Mango Markets hacker identified as Avraham Eisenburg. He claims his actions in the exploit were legitimate. After negotiations and a community vote, Mango struck a deal with Eisenburg that returned $67 million to the project and went for about $50 million.
