Deribit Hacker Starts Transferring Stolen ETH Via Tornado Cash

• Reports of a $28 million loss at Deribit due to a hot wallet attack surfaced on November 2.
• The attacker transferred a total of 1,610 ETH over the course of 17 separate transactions.

The attacker began transferring the stolen assets less than a week after attacking one of the top cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, Deribit. Hacker sent 1,610 Ether (ETH) worth over $2.5 million to the U.S. sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash on November 5, leaving roughly 7,501 ETH remaining.

Reports of a $28 million loss at Deribit due to a hot wallet attack surfaced on November 2. Stolen cryptocurrencies included Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and USD Coin (USDC).

Withdrawals and deposits were temporarily halted while the exchange attempted to regain control by performing security checks. Deribit assured its consumers that their valuables, including those in cold storage, would be safe. Since any losses would be paid by company reserves rather than the insurance fund.

Total of 1610 ETH Transferred

After moving all hot wallets to cryptocurrency custodian Fireblocks, the site resumed operations on the same day. Users were also warned not to utilize their old BTC, ETH, or USDC addresses. To transfer money to the exchange again. Users were urged to utilize deposit addresses generated by Fireblocks.

The hacker began sending money to Tornado two days later. Based on information gathered by Etherscan, a blockchain explorer for Ethereum, the attacker transferred a total of 1,610 ETH over the course of 17 separate transactions, 16 of which included 100 ETH and one of which involved 10.

On the day of the vulnerability, the attacker sent 9,080 ETH to the depositing address. At the time of publication, the wallet had 7,501 ETH valued at approximately $11.8 million. The Deribit breach occurred shortly after the month of October ended when a total of $650 million was lost due to 44 attacks impacting 53 DeFi projects.