How Radiant Capital Lost $50 Million in Crypto Hack?

Blockchain lender Radiant Capital suffered a major multi-chain hack, losing over $50 million. Hackers reportedly gained control over three of Radiant’s private keys and drained these assets through an exploit.

Further details on the hack have yet to materialize, but this is Radiant’s second major hack of the year.

Radiant’s Second Hack of 2024

Blockchain lending protocol Radiant Capital lost more than $50 million in a major hack Wednesday. Cyvers Alerts first recognized this news, detecting a series of suspicious transactions involving Radiant Capital on multiple chains. Cyvers warned users to avoid all interactions with Radiant until further notice.

Read More: Crypto Social Media Scams: How to Stay Safe

“It appears that the platform has suffered a private key compromise, leading to an ongoing attack. A malicious actor gained control of multi-sig wallets and has already drained over $50 million in user assets by exploiting the transferFrom function,” said Cyvers’ alert.

Although large-scale crypto hacks are declining in general, hundreds of millions in various assets are stolen on a monthly basis. This is not even Radiant’s first major hack of the year, although the prior theft in January only led to $4.5 million in losses. Today’s hack is more than ten times more costly.

Even worse for Radiant, the actual cause has yet to be determined. According to an analysis from De.Fi security, hackers were somehow able to access three of Radiant’s private keys, which was enough to carry out the attack. Sophisticated phishing attacks have grown as a preferred weapon for hackers this year, but these culprits may have used other methods.

Read More: What is a Private Key in Crypto?

“We are aware of an issue with the Radiant Lending markets on Binance Chain and Arbitrum. We are working with SEAL911, Hypernative, ZeroShadow & Chainalysis and will provide an update as soon as possible. Markets on Base and Mainnet are paused until further notice,” Radiant posted after the attack.

In other words, a cadre of top-level analysts is working to ascertain more details of this attack. However, Radiant has publicly paused all trading and asked users to revoke their contracts. Radiant will likely publish further details as they develop.