Bybit Suffers Hack Of Over $1.4 Billion In ETH

In a developing story, the Bybit exchange has been hacked for over $1.4 billion. This comes following a report from on-chain sleuth ZachXBT about ETH outflows from the crypto exchange.

Bybit Suffers Hack Of Over $1.4 Billion

The Bybit exchange appears to have suffered a hack involving over $1.4 billion. Onchain sleuth ZachXBT reported suspicious outflows of over $1.4 billion from the top crypto exchange and listed certain addresses that were receiving these ETH outflows.

Meanwhile, the crypto exchange also reported an unauthorized transfer of ETH from its cold wallets due to masked UI spoofing accounts. However, it assured customers that other wallets remained secure.

In an X post, Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou confirmed the hack incident. He revealed that the exchange’s ETH multisig cold wallet made a transfer to their warm wallet. Zhou added that it appears the hackers musked this specific transaction as all the signers saw the musked UI, which showed that the correct address and the URL were from the Safe platform.

However, according to him, the signing message was to change the smart contract logic of their ETH cold wallet. As a result, the hacker took control of the specific ETH cold wallet they signed and transferred all the ETH in the cold wallet to an unidentified address.

Zhou assured that all other cold wallets are secure. Meanwhile, he noted that all withdrawals were normal and called on any team that could help track the stolen funds to collaborate with them.

Exchange Remains Solvent

In another X post, the Bybit CEO assured that the crypto exchange is solvent even if they don’t recover the $1.4 billion the hacker stole from their cold wallet. He added that all clients’ assets are 1 to 1 and that they can cover all losses. CoinMarketCap data showed that the crypto exchange had reserve assets worth $16.2 billion before the hack, meaning that the stolen funds account for 8.64% of the exchange’s reserves.

Meanwhile, the hacker is already looking to launder the stolen funds. Onchain analytics platform Lookonchain revealed that the hacker is moving the stolen funds into multiple wallets.

Crypto Community Reacts

The crypto community has reacted to the Bybit hack. Binance’s former CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, replied to Zhou’s X post, stating that it wasn’t an easy situation to deal with. He suggested that the exchange halts withdrawal for a bit as a standard security precaution. He added that he would provide any assistance if needed.

TRON’s founder, Justin Sun, also reacted to the hack. In an X post, he revealed they have been monitoring the Bybit incident “very closely.” Sun remarked that they will do their best to assist their partners in tracking the relevant funds and providing all the support within their capabilities.

Onchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence has also created and funded a bounty to help identify the person or organization behind the Bybit hack. The platform revealed that the submissions will be shared with the Bybit team to support their investigation.

In an X post, Safe revealed that its security team is working closely with Bybit on an ongoing investigation. The team stated they haven’t found evidence that the official Safe frontend was compromised. However, out of caution, they revealed that they are temporarily pausing certain functionalities.

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Boluwatife Adeyemi

Boluwatife Adeyemi is a well-experienced crypto news writer and editor who has covered topics that cut across DeFi, NFTs, smart contracts, and blockchain interoperability, among others. Boluwatife has a knack for simplifying the most technical concepts and making it easy for crypto newbies to understand. Away from writing, He is an avid basketball lover and a part-time degen.

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