Blockchain-based platform Poly Network announced Tuesday that hackers have breached its security and have apparently swiped more than $600 million in cryptocurrencies.
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The sheer volume of the theft makes it the "biggest [attack] in DeFi history," the company said.
"We are sorry to announce that #PolyNetwork was attacked," the company tweeted, admitting that hackers had transferred hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency to separate wallets.
Important Notice:
We are sorry to announce that #PolyNetwork was attacked on @BinanceChain @ethereum and @0xPolygon Assets had been transferred to hacker's following addresses:
ETH: 0xC8a65Fadf0e0dDAf421F28FEAb69Bf6E2E589963
BSC: 0x0D6e286A7cfD25E0c01fEe9756765D8033B32C71— Poly Network (@PolyNetwork2) August 10, 2021
Poly Network is a Chinese software company that processes cryptocurrency transactions on the Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum and Polygon blockchains.
"DeFi" stands for "decentralized finance," a form of finance that does not rely on central financial intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks to offer traditional financial instruments, and instead utilizes blockchain platforms, the most common being Ethereum. Protocols the likes of which Poly Network uses allow cryptocurrency traders to swap Bitcoin for Ethereum, for example.
The company later appealed to the hackers in a tweet and urged them to return the $600 million stolen.
"Dear hacker," an open letter from Poly Network read, "The amount of money you have hacked is one of the biggest in defi history. Law enforcement in any country will regard this as a major economic crime and you will be pursued.
"The money you stole comes from tens of thousands of crypto community members, hence the people. You should talk to us to work out a solution," it concluded.
According to various tech websites, it appears that some of the $600 million stolen form Poly Network has already been liquidated, but other transactions have been rejected.
— Poly Network (@PolyNetwork2) August 10, 2021
Aaron MacGregor, the CEO of Tether – the world's third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization company, which converts real money into cryptocurrencies and vice versa, said he had frozen $33 million worth of digital tokens after the Poly hack.
Several hours after hack, blockchain-based security firm SlowMist said it identified the attacker's email, IP address and device fingerprints, and was working on tracking additional identity clues.
"We call on miners of affected blockchain and crypto exchanges to blacklist tokens coming from the above addresses," Poly Network tweeted Tuesday.
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