Major cryptocurrency exchange BIBit has led to more than $5.5 billion in total leak after suffering nearly $1.5 billion in hacks from North Korean Lazarus group that saw hackers believed to emit etheric cold wallets. I’ve seen it.
According to data from Defilama, the total assets of wallets tracked by exchange-related wallets had plummeted from about $16.9 billion to $11.2 billion at the time of writing. The exchange is now trying to understand exactly what happened.
In an X-space session, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou called on “all hands-on decks” to provide services to clients in response to questions and inquiries about what is happening soon after the incident It has been revealed.
During the session, Zhou revealed that due to a security breach, the hackers saw collapse of around 70% of the client’s ether, so Bybit should quickly protect the loans so that they can handle the withdrawal. did. However, Zhou discovered that ether was not the most retracted token, and most users instead retracted Stablecoin from Bibit.
Zhou said the exchange will be prepared to cover these withdrawals, but in response to the incident, SAFE temporarily shuts down the functionality of its smart wallets to “ensure absolute trust in the security of the platform.” The crisis deepened as it moved to do so.
SAFE is a decentralized custody protocol that provides smart contract wallets for digital asset management. Some exchanges have integrated SAFE. This allows users to maintain custody of their own funds and has multi-sig features to enhance the security of their cold wallets.
The exchange had a spare backing up user drawers, but according to the surroundings it was in a secure wallet that had $3 billion worth of USDT locked up in a safe wallet.
On social media, Safe said “we couldn’t find any evidence that the official SAFE frontend had been compromised, but it was temporary. Shut down a “specific feature” No attention is paid.
The Zhou and Bybit teams were thinking of ways to safely withdraw the $3 billion, but withdrawals were on the rise. Within two hours of the security breaches, the exchange was facing a demand to move more than $100,000 from the platform, Zhou revealed.
In response to the situation, Zhou told his security team to engage safely in “finding a better way to pay this money.” The team developed new software using “Etherscan-based” code, validating the signature “at a very manual level” to put Stablecoins back in their wallets and covering the withdrawal surge.
According to Zhou, the exchange team had to wake up all night to fill the drawers. The exchange was able to move the $3 billion Stablecoin Relerves, which faced banking operations of “about 50%” of all the funds on the exchange.
Zhou said the exchange has moved a significant amount of funds from the safe cold wallet since the incident and is currently deciding which system to use for the safe exchange.
“Rollback” pushing against Ethereum was not off the table
Since the security breach, BYBIT has been involved with the authorities. During the session, Zhou said that Singaporean authorities have “very serious” the issue and believe it is already escalating with Interpol.
Blockchain analytics companies including Chain Orisis were involved. “I hope that as long as Bibit is there and keeps track of the stolen ether, we can get back these funds.”
In particular, he agrees that he will push for “rollback” the Ethereum blockchain proposed by some industry players on social media, including Bitmex co-founder Arthur Hayes. If so, it made it clear that he was at the table for a while.
“I talked to my team with Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation to see if there are any recommendations they can offer to help. I wonder if there’s any chance that they’ll roll back the chain for all these guys on Twitter. I’m really grateful to ask if they’re asking. I don’t know what the response on their part is, but anything that helps us try,” Zhou said.
When asked if the chain would be “rolled back”, Zhou replied that he didn’t know. “I don’t know if it’s a one-person decision based on the spirit of blockchain. It should be a task to see what the community wants,” he said.
It is noteworthy that blockchain “rollbacks” refer to state changes that allow funds to be collected. While it is technically possible to roll back the Bitcoin blockchain, changes in Ethereum state are more complicated given the interaction of smart contracts and state-based architecture.
Nevertheless, changes in state require consensus, possibly leading to a controversial hard fork, which draws criticism from the community. This divides the Ethereum blockchain into two networks, each with its own support.
It is still unknown as to what exactly the hack occurred. According to Zhou, Bybit’s laptops have not been compromised. He said the moves of deal signers have been under scrutiny but seemingly routine.
“We know that this is definitely around a safe cold wallet. Whether it’s our laptop problem or on the safe side, we don’t know. .” added Zhou.
