The exchange of main cryptocurrencies bybit has seen total exits of more than $ 5.5 billion after it suffered a pirate of almost $ 1.5 billion that saw the computer pirates, which is believed to be from the Lázaro Group of North Korea His cold wallet.
The total assets tracked in the wallets associated with the exchange fell from around $ 16.9 billion to $ 11.2 billion at the time of writing, according to defillma data. The exchange is now looking to understand exactly what happened.
In a session of X Spaces, the CEO of Bybit, Ben Zhou, revealed that shortly after the incident, he asked “all the hands on the deck” that served its clients with processing retreats and responding to consultations about what was happening.
During the session, Zhou revealed that security violation saw hackers make approximately 70% of their customers’ ether, which meant that Bybit needed to quickly ensure a loan to process retreats. However, Zhou discovered that Ether was not the most retired token, and most users withdrew bycoin from Bybit.
The exchange, Zhou said, has reservations to cover these withdrawals, but the crisis deepened as, in response to the incident, Safe moved to temporarily close its intelligent wallet functionalities to “guarantee the absolute confidence in the safety of our platform.”
SAFE is a decentralized custody protocol that provides intelligent contract wallets for digital asset management. Some Safe integrated exchanges, which allows users to maintain custody of their funds and have a multisig functionality to improve the safety of their cold wallets.
While the exchange had reservations to support user withdrawals, $ 3 billion in USDT was in a safe wallet that had just closed as the wallet moved to understand the situation, according to Zhou.
In social networks, Safe said that while “I had not found evidence that Safe’s official interface was committed,” was temporarily turn off “certain functionalities” As a precaution.
While the Zhou and Bybit team was discovering how to safely withdraw their $ 3 billion, retreats were increasing. Within two hours of security violation, the exchange faced requests to move more than $ 100,000 of its platform, Zhou revealed.
Responding to the situation, Zhou told his security team to commit to “find a better way to get this money.” The team ended up developing a new software with “Eserscan” code to verify the firms “at a very manual level” to move the stable to its wallet and cover the increase in withdrawal.
The exchange team had to remain awake all night to meet the retreats, according to Zhou. As the exchange managed to move the $ 3 billion in Stablecoin reserves, he faced a bank execution of “approximately 50%” of all funds within the exchange.
Zhou said that from the incident, the exchange has moved a significant amount of funds of safe cold wallets and is now determining which system will use to replace Safe.
Push for “back to” back “Ethereum was not out of the table
Since the security violation, Bybit has committed to the authorities. During the session, Zhou said the Singapore authorities took the issue “very seriously” and that he believes that he has already been intensified with Interpol.
Blockchain analysis companies were involved, including the chain of Cadelos. Zhou said: “While Bybit is there and continues to track [the stolen ether]I hope we can recover these funds. “
In particular, he revealed that press According to her.
“I made my team talk to Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation to see if there is any recommendation that they can offer to help. I really thank all these types on Twitter asking if there is the possibility of reversing the chain. I am not sure what the answer on his side was, but anything that would help try, ”said Zhou.
When asked if “rolling back” the chain It is even possible, Zhou replied that he does not know. “I am not sure that it is a decision of a single man based on the spirit of Blockchain. It should be a job in process to see what the community wants, ”he said.
It is worth noting that a “Reversion” of Blockchain refers to a change of state that would allow the funds to be recovered. While the reverse, the Bitcoin block chain is technically possible, this change of state in Ethereum would be more complex, given its intelligent contractual interactions and its state architecture.
However, any state change would require consensus and would probably lead to a hard bifurcation controversy, causing community criticism. This would probably divide the Ethereum block chain into two networks, each with their own followers.
As for what the trick caused exactly, it is not yet clear. According to Zhou, bybit laptops have not been compromised. He said that the movements of the transaction signers have been examined but that they seem to have been routine.
“We know that the cause is definitely around the safe cold wallet. Be it a problem with our laptops or Safe side, we don’t know it, “Zhou added.
