The Fantom Foundation has been hacked and exploited for millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies. The details from CeriK, a blockchain security firm, suggest that the funds were drained from Fantom’s crypto wallets through a phishing scam. However, the team of the protocol is currently digging to investigate the attack details.
As a smart contract and dApp platform, Fantom prioritizes speedy performance and efficient transactions in comparison to other layer-one blockchains. However, the recent attack has severely impacted the Fantom Foundation. Luckily, the blockchain remained safe from the attack. The Foundation further added that the stolen funds belonged to users and about 99% of the foundation’s own funds were secure in the attack.
— Fantom Foundation (@FantomFDN) October 17, 2023
Uncertainty Over the Exact Stolen Amount
As per initial details, the foundation lost around $470,000 on Fantom and $187,000 on Ethereum. It was further noted that the funds were contained in a wallet, holding around 4.500 ETH. These tokens amounted to around $700K.
To recap, stolen funds from the @FantomFDN wallet drain today have been consolidated into EOA 0x0b1
Estimated loss is ~$7m across multiple wallets
PK losses in 2023 now amount to ~$591m pic.twitter.com/GsgkvqJsLb
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) October 17, 2023
However, the Fantom Foundation claimed that some of the wallets drained in the attack were mislabeled and they did not belong to the foundation itself. The firm added that these wallets initially belonged to the foundation but were reassigned to an employee. So, they were not holding funds from the company. This wallet was compromised for around $3.4 million.
Some other non-tagged wallets held by the company’s employees were compromised during the attack. The hackers’ wallet was seen holding a range of crypto tokens. These included ETH, USDT, USDC, DAI, CVX, FUSD, and several others.
FTM Falls But Who is Behind the Fantom Foundation Attack?
This attack is a major setback for the crypto protocol. Even though the company’s own funds are safe, it is still a dent to its reputation among users. As a result, Fantom (FTM) has lost around 4.25% in the last day or so, consolidating to $0.177. The market cap of the token has also fallen to $495 million. Thus, it would take some effort for the coin to get back on track.
Experts initially figured that the hacker had to dig through complex DeFi stuff for the hack. So, the scammer was someone with an in-depth knowledge of DeFi.
same attacker did this account.
notably they unwound a lot of fairly complex defi stuff on it, so probably someone quite familiar with defi ecosystem pic.twitter.com/InTq2N5Unk
— Spreek (@spreekaway) October 17, 2023
Many such attacks in the past have been linked to the North Korean group of hackers, Lazarus. The group has plundered hundreds of millions of dollars through some high-profile protocol hacks.
