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After Mixin Network's infrastructure faced a security compromise, resulting in a loss of approximately $200 million in digital assets, the company has now dangled a $20 million carrot as a reward for the retrieval of the missing funds.
Mixin Network, a DeFi platform championing decentralized cross-chain transactions, faced a daunting setback on September 23, when it lost a vast sum of crypto to a cyber adversary.
Undeterred, the organization has issued an encrypted message to the hacker, emphasizing the ethical dimension of their actions and offering the hacker a profitable way out:
On delving deeper into the attack, Mixin Network confirmed the breach's source: A compromised third-party cloud platform. Feng Xiaodong, the visionary behind Mixin, told users that up to half of their lost assets would be compensated. He also raised a reimbursement strategy involving bond tokens that Mixin plans to buy back using future revenues.
[Announcement] In the early morning of September 23, 2023 Hong Kong time, the database of Mixin Network's cloud service provider was attacked by hackers, resulting in the loss of some assets on the mainnet. We have contacted Google and blockchain security company @SlowMist_Team…
— Mixin Kernel (@MixinKernel) September 25, 2023
Despite the current ambiguity surrounding the exact sequence of events leading to the heist, some breadcrumbs suggest prior engagements between the alleged hacker and Mixin Network. One such trace is a 2022 transaction, wherein an address, presumably linked to the perpetrator, received 5 ETH.
It's an unsettling realization for many that cross-chain systems in the DeFi realm have become hotspots for malevolent cyberactivities. Statistics are alarming: Over 50% of all breaches in the DeFi sector target these cross-chain interfaces, culminating in a staggering $2.5 billion in losses. Given the pivotal role these systems play, bridging transactions over multiple blockchains, they've inadvertently also become magnets for cyber criminals.
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