Reports have revealed that some of the funds stolen from the Poloniex crypto exchange have been moved for the first time. After six months, one of the identified accounts to which the exploit was sent in November 2023 transferred $3.5 million to a crypto mixer.
Stolen funds transferred for the first time
On Monday evening, one of the tagged addresses holding the stolen assets transferred the funds to a banned Tornado Cash in the United States. This is the first time since the cryptocurrency heist that the hacker has moved some of the money to launder it.
By Wu Blockchain report, the Poloniex hacker transferred 100 ETH, worth approximately $308,000, from the address 0x3E…fDFd to the mixer. Later, PeckShieldAlert informed that the address sent 1,100 ETH, worth almost $3.5 million, to Tornado Cash.
#PeckShieldAlert #Poloniex The address labeled by a hacker 0x3e94…3fdfd transferred 1.11k $ETH (worth approximately $3.4 million) to #Tornadocash pic.twitter.com/JIDG0pYfUH
– PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) May 7, 2024
In November 2023, the Poloniex Exchange led by Justin Sun suffered a security breach that resulted in the theft of $125 million. At the time, blockchain security company PeckShield informed of suspicious activities coming from the platform's hot wallets. As a result, the Poloniex team froze the accounts “for maintenance reasons.”
However, this proved unsuccessful as the hackers had already stolen millions of dollars worth of crypto assets from the addresses. According to reports, the exchange recorded losses of $56 million in Ether (ETH), $48 million in TRON (TRX), and $18 million in Bitcoin (BTC). Additionally, assets like Pepe (PEPE) and Magic (MAGIC) were stolen.
Crypto Hacker ignores warnings
Tron exchange founder and owner Justin Sun initially offered hackers a 5% Whitehat reward for returning crypto assets. Sun later increased the offer from around $6 million to $10 million, reaching the industry standard of 10 percent.
Unfortunately, the attackers did not accept Sun's offer despite his clear message. message that the assets would become useless. The Tron founder sent $0.10 worth of ETH to the already identified wallets where the stolen funds had been sent.
In the post, Sun said the addresses had been marked as ineligible. He also warned investors that dealings with the hacker could freeze their accounts.
The Poloniex hack was attributed to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group, known for its high-profile attacks. According to data from CoinGecko, the exploit caused the centralized exchange to lose significant user trust, with its trust score dropping to 5 points out of 10.
The most recent transfers appear to confirm that the funds will never be returned and that recovery is almost impossible, as declared by Wu Blockchain. The attacker used privacy tools to hide the funds despite not being able to send the crypto assets directly to exchanges.
It is worth noting that global regulators have misused these tools for criminal purposes as a pretext to crack down and monitor the privacy industry. Nonetheless, financial privacy remains important for user security, and using privacy tools can help protect investors.
Ultimately, the growing number of crypto hacks remains a concern for the community. More than half a billion dollars was stolen by malicious actors from crypto projects during the first quarter of 2024. Despite the importance of decrease in April, experts continue to urge crypto investors to be wary of suspicious activity and strengthen their security measures.
Total crypto market capitalization is at $2.27 trillion in the weekly chart. Source: TOTAL on TradingView
Featured image from Unsplash.com, chart from TradingView.com