In recent days, cryptocurrency platform Qubit Finance confirmed that its systems were compromised by a group of unidentified threat actors. The platform, specializing in decentralized lending, has even appealed to the goodwill of thieves, in a desperate move to recover lost assets.
Last Friday, the company acknowledged that one of its protocols had been unintentionally exploited, resulting in the loss of some $80 million USD in virtual assets. This incident is unusual, as the attacker would have used Qubit’s protocols, leaving a trail on the blockchain.
Qubit has already begun to address the incident. Over the weekend, the company rolled out a website to help affected users, which includes a record of all committed funds.
The company subsequently offered a $2 million payment through its rewards program for the attackers, making it a condition that they return the stolen assets. This is the highest amount that has been offered in the company’s rewards program.
Although this may be a desperate call, cybersecurity experts believe the company could succeed in its search, as hackers could find it difficult to fade the $80 million trail. Considering this problem, hackers could well take the $2 million USD offered by the company.
In addition, some background is already known in which hackers return the stolen cryptocurrency. An example is the incident at Poly Metwork, which suffered the theft of $ 600 million USD only to later receive back the stolen assets since the attackers claimed that they just wanted to play a joke and show the security shortcomings in the network.
So far it is unknown if the attackers will return the stolen assets, so both the company and the affected users will have to wait to know if they will be able to recover the cryptocurrency extracted by the hackers.
To learn more about information security risks, malware variants, vulnerabilities and information technologies, feel free to access the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) websites.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
