Hackers have stolen some Ksh.65.4 billion (US$.600 million) in what appears to be one the largest cryptocurrency heists ever.
Blockchain site Poly Network said hackers had exploited a vulnerability in its system and taken thousands of digital tokens such as Ether.
In a letter posted on Twitter, it urged the thieves to “establish communication and return the hacked assets”.
In scale, the hack is on par with huge recent breaches at exchanges such as Coincheck and Mt Gox, this is according to the BBC report.
In its letter Poly Network said: “The amount of money you have hacked is one of the biggest in defi [decentralised finance] history.
“Law enforcement in any country will regard this as a major economic crime and you will be pursued.
“The money you stole are [sic] from tens of thousands of crypto community members, hence the people.”
Once the hackers stole the money, they began to send it to various other cryptocurrency addresses. Researchers at security company SlowMist said a total of more than Ksh.66.5 billion (US$.610 million) worth of cryptocurrency was transferred to three different addresses.
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Poly Network urged cryptocurrency exchanges to “blacklist tokens” coming from the addresses that were linked to the hackers.
About Ksh.3.6 billion (US$.33 million) of Tether that was part of the theft has been frozen, according to the stablecoin’s issuer.
According to CNBC News, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance, said he was aware of the attack.
He said Binance is “coordinating with all our security partners to proactively help,” but that “there are no guarantees.”
“We will take legal actions and we urge the hackers to return the assets,” Poly Network said on Twitter.
DeFi has become a key target for attacks.
Since the start of the year until July, DeFi-related hacks totaled Ksh.39.3 billion (US$.361 million), an increase of nearly three times from the whole of 2020, according to cryptocurrency compliance company CipherTrace.
DeFi-related fraud is also on the rise. In the first seven months of the year, CNBC News reports that they accounted for 54 percent of total crypto fraud volume versus 3 percent for all of last year.
