KyberSwap DEX Hacked for $48 Million, Attacker Teases Negotiations

Decentralized
exchange
(DEX)
KyberSwap
has
been
attacked
for
nearly
$50
million,
and

administrators
are
advising
users
to
withdraw
all
funds
as
a
precautionary
measure
as
the
exploiter
says
negotiations
will
soon
commence.

On-chain
data
shows
that
the
attacker
is
stealing
funds
mostly
in
Ether,
wrapped
ether
(wETH)
and
USDC.
The
attacker
has
also
hit
multiple
cross-chain
deployments
of
KyberSwap,
taking
over
$20
million
on
Arbitrum,
$15
million
from
Optimism
and
$7
million
from
Ethereum.

On-chain
sleuths
have
ruled
out
this
being
related
to
a
bug
in
the
DEX’s
approval
authorization
code,
and
suggest
that
the
theft
is
a
directed
attack
against
the
liquidity
provider
pools
themselves.

The
attacker
has
teased
that
“negotiations
will
start
in
a
few
hours
when
I
am
fully
rested.”

The
attacker
also
asked,
“how
is
Ontario
this
time
of
year”.

Hackers
teasing
their
victims
via
signing
transactions
with
strings
of
text
is
an
increasingly
common
trend
with
decentralized
finance
exploits.

The
DEX
currently
has
$22.23
million
in
total
value
locked
(TVL)

according
to
DeFiLlama,
down
from
approximately
$80
million
before
the
attack.