TL;DR
- The BNB Chain faces a possible $80,000 Bitcoin exploit, with suspicious transactions raising uncertainty about the attacker’s intentions.
- Cyvers speculates on the possibility that it could be a ‘white hat’ hacker, noting that the total loss was compensated with funds from TornadoCash and transactions with Binance.
- The attacker also interacted with Binance, which contrasts with the typical behavior of malicious hackers who avoid large exchanges requiring KYC verification.
The BNB Chain is facing a potential $80,000 Bitcoin exploit, with multiple suspicious transactions involved. While it’s considered a relatively small amount compared to other crypto attacks, it has raised questions about the attacker’s motives. Some indications suggest it could be an ethical or “white hat” hacker seeking vulnerabilities in the blockchain.
On-chain security firm Cyvers speculates that the BNB attack might be the work of an ethical hacker, as the total loss, close to $80,000, was offset by funds from TornadoCash and transactions with the Binance exchange. However, the identity and intentions of the attacker have not been confirmed.
🚨ALERT🚨Our system has detected multiple suspicious transactions involving $BTC token on $BNB chain!
The total loss is approximately $80K. The attacker received funding via @TornadoCash and has also interacted with the @binance exchange, indicating a possible whitehat action.… pic.twitter.com/SjhpGMW126
— 🚨 Cyvers Alerts 🚨 (@CyversAlerts) May 28, 2024
It’s worth noting that despite receiving funds from the TornadoCash crypto mixer, the attacker also engaged with Binance. This differs from the behavior of malicious hackers. Who tend to avoid interactions with large exchanges requiring KYC verification, which could reveal their identity.
Waiting for a Response from BNB
The alleged exploit on BNB comes shortly after Gala Games suffered an attack resulting in the theft of $23 million in Gala tokens. However, surprisingly, the attacker returned almost all of the stolen value after their wallet was frozen. This suggests that while malicious hackers exist, there are cases where cybercriminals change their minds and return stolen funds.
In another recent case, $71 million in stolen cryptocurrencies from a wallet poisoning scheme. Were returned to the affected user after multiple blockchain investigation firms brought attention to the incident. However, in this case, on-chain transactions suggest that the attacker was not an ethical hacker but a malicious actor who became scared of media attention and decided to return the funds.
While exploits are common in the blockchain industry, there are often exceptions. For now, we await further updates from BNB to clarify what happened with the alleged hack.
