Arbitrum and BNB smart chain caught up in DEUS exploit: Here’s what’s going on

• Arbitrum and BNB chain get entangled in the recent DEUS exploit.
• Attackers acquire more than $5 million, but white hat hackers try to help.

The Arbitrum [ARB] and BNB smart chain [BSC] networks have been growing steadily in terms of active addresses for the last few months. However, a recent hack could impact this growth going forward.

Read Arbitrum’s [ARB] Price Prediction 2023-2024

Based on the data supplied by PeckShield, DEI, a stablecoin issued by DeFi protocol DEUS, fell victim to a security breach on 6 May. BSC suffered a loss of $1.3 million, while the loss incurred on Arbitrum surpassed $5 million.

Hi @DeusDao: it appears to be a pubic burn vulnerability with loss > $1.3M alone at BSC. The ARB/ETH deployments are also affected.

The BSC hack was successfully frontrun by a bot: https://t.co/hXskQOIfwV

The DEI token @ BSC was upgraded on Apr-10-2023 https://t.co/QJHwnZaXMk pic.twitter.com/C51CnVsg1B

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) May 5, 2023

According to the data, the BSC hack was successfully front-run by a bot. “Front-running” refers to an automated program that executed trades ahead of others in the queue, resulting in financial losses for those who were affected.

The bot’s successful execution of this tactic contributed to the security breach.

White hats act as Deus ex machina

In response to these attacks, DEUS secured some help from white hat hackers. White hat hackers are individuals who use their computer security skills for ethical and lawful purposes. In this context, some white-hate hackers could retrieve the funds that were lost by DEUS.

These hackers would be sending the retrieved funds to a multisig owned by the DEUS team.

However, this is not the first time that DEUS’ security has been compromised. On 28 April, the DEUS network was exploited on the Fantom network for $13.4 million. This hack occurred due to flash loan-assisted manipulation of a price oracle.

If the hacks on DEUS continue to rise, it will impact not only the protocol but also other networks associated with it. These hacks could also lead to an increase in mistrust among potential users.

Realistic or not, here’s BNB’s market cap in BTC’s terms

Were BNB and ARB affected?

At press time, activity on the BNB chain remained unaffected. The number of transactions occurring on the network also remained stable. However, Binance’s other security vulnerabilities related to Curve [CRV] could affect BNB negatively in the future.

On the other hand, Arbitrum witnessed a decline in the number of daily active addresses over the past few days. Subsequently, the number of transactions occurring on the protocol also fell during this period.

Source: Artemis