$3.5B Bitcoin heist from 2020 retroactively uncovered — Arkham Intel

Chinese mining excavation LuBian was hacked successful 2020 for 127,426 Bitcoin (BTC), valued astatine astir $3.5 cardinal astatine the time, making it the biggest crypto hack successful history, according to blockchain analytics level Arkham Intelligence.

The level retroactively uncovered the heist connected Saturday, claiming that LuBian, which emerged arsenic the sixth-largest BTC mining pool astatine the time, was archetypal hacked connected December 28, 2020. 

About 90% of the pool’s BTC was stolen by the menace histrion earlier LuBian was capable to move its remaining 11,886 BTC to betterment wallets. Neither the level nor the hacker publicized the onslaught astatine the time, the quality level said.

Funds stolen from LuBian done aggregate transactions. Source: Arkham Intelligence

The mining excavation embedded an OP_RETURN connection to each of the wallet addresses belonging to the hacker successful 1,516 antithetic messages, which outgo it astir 1.4 BTC. Arkham’s squad besides wrote:

“It appears that LuBian was utilizing an algorithm to make its backstage keys that was susceptible to brute-force attacks. This whitethorn person been the vulnerability exploited by the hackers.”

The stolen Bitcoin is present worthy astir $14.5 cardinal astatine existent prices, and the onslaught highlights the request for crypto users to signifier proactive information measures and backstage cardinal management, relying connected lone the astir robust random fig generators to make keys.

The OP_Return messages sent from LuBian to the hacker addresses. Source: Arkham Intelligence

Related: Crypto hacks apical $142M successful July, with CoinDCX starring losses

LuBian hack tops the ByBit hack and different infamous crypto heists

In February, the ByBit speech was hacked for $1.5 billion and the onslaught was reported arsenic the azygous biggest crypto hack successful history astatine the time.

The ByBit onslaught was attributed to a compromised SafeWallet developer machine, according to a post-mortem report from SafeWallet and cybersecurity steadfast Mandiant.

These hackers apt exploited the developer’s instrumentality by installing malware connected the strategy and past utilizing that developer’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) tokens portion the developer was online and active.

This allowed the hackers to entree delicate systems without mounting disconnected immoderate alarm bells oregon triggering a effect from the team.

In April, an aged idiosyncratic lost $330 cardinal successful Bitcoin done a societal engineering attack, which was laundered done 300 antithetic wallet addresses.

The BTC heist was considered the fifth-largest crypto heist successful past astatine the time, and lone $7 cardinal of the $330 cardinal was frozen successful the contiguous aftermath of the attack.

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