US Government wallet hacker returns 88 percent of stolen funds
The hacker who drained approximately $20 million in funds from a United States government wallet on October 24th has returned $19.3 million to the wallet less than 24 hours later.
π¨π£πππ§π: $ππ΅π π¨π¦ ππΌππ²πΏπ»πΊπ²π»π π³ππ»π±π πΏπ²πππΏπ»π²π±
The US Governmentβs address has just received $19.3M back following yesterdayβs reported hack, less than 24 hours after the initial address breach.
88% of the compromised USD value has now beenβ¦ https://t.co/F8q6iikBrT pic.twitter.com/Vo7I7ZH9K1β Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) October 25, 2024
Almost $20 million in crypto stolen from US government returned
The stolen funds (containing seized funds from the 2016 Bitfinex hack) were returned to the US government wallet beginning with the characters "0xc9E" from several wallets under the hacker's control, according to Arkham Intelligence. As of this writing, about 88% of the funds have been returned by the malicious actor.
Onchain data shows the details of the funds returned. The hacker returned approximately $13.2 million in Aave-staked USDC (aUSDC), 7,200 Circle-USD (USDC), and 2,412 Ether (ETH).
In addition, blockchain detective ZackXBT said the funds returned do not include the roughly $700,000 that was transferred to instant exchanges by the hacker.
How did it all start?
According to analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, it was disclosed that someone seems to have stolen about $20 million worth of cryptocurrency from U.S. government wallets. At around 2:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, funds that hadn't moved in more than eight months were moved out of the decentralized lending platform Aave, triggering unusual onchain activity.
The company added that the funds pulled out included tokens consisting of almost half a million Ethereum, $5.4 million USDC, $1.1 million USDT, and nearly $14 million in the AUSDC stablecoin. Crypto user typicaldoomer.eth transferred 69 NOCHILL tokens to the suspected hacker hours after the attack.
Members of the crypto community are puzzled by the situation. Users first asked why United States government wallets would be targeted by hackers, and the decision to return part of the fund within 24 hours has only increased speculation.
The identity of the hacker or potential suspects was unknown at the time of publication, and there are still few details available regarding how the hack was carried out. An X user with the handle @TheRedDotGuy_ wrote in a post that maybe the hacker borrowed the fund and paid himself a bounty while at it.
Growing trend in crypto hacks since the beginning of Q4 2024
The US government wallet exploit highlights an increase in the number of cryptocurrency hacks since the beginning of October.
On October 16, it was reported that $50 million was stolen from Radiant Capital, a cross-chain lending protocol. The firm's multisignature wallet provided the hacker with the private keys needed to sign transactions, which allowed them to compromise Radiant Capital contracts on Arbitrum networks and the BNB Chain.
The next day, a front-end attack was launched against the website of Ambient Finance, a decentralized trading protocol. According to Reuters on Thursday, October 17, U.S. prosecutors said that a 25-year-old man from Alabama was arrested for hacking the X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this year as part of an alleged conspiracy to manipulate Bitcoin prices.
On October 18, a hacker gained control of the social media account of Eigenlayer's X and posted malicious airdrop links to unsuspecting users. The X account has been retrieved back from the malicious actor, and the fraudulent airdrop link was removed after just a few minutes of being active.
Meanwhile, following the BingX September hot wallet incident, which resulted in a $43 million loss, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange has announced the launch of a new project called ShieldX designed to strengthen the platform's security architecture. BingX said in a statement on October 24 that it has fully recovered from the recent hot wallet exploit and that all withdrawals and deposits can now proceed normally.
Disclaimer
This information should not be considered financial advice by any means. Please do your own research before making any investment decisions. The views in the articles are personal opinions only. Whale Insider is not responsible for any financial losses incurred.