By Alicia Maher
Hackers unfortunately gained access to Grim Finance. The DeFi platform is one among several platforms that suffered an attack from crypto attackers. The loss amounted to more than thirty million dollars. The attackers gained entry via the digital asset’s vault contract. Once they got in, they transferred digital assets out of the platform.
Grim Finance immediately reached out to its community via its Twitter handle to brief them of the unfortunate incident. The team at Grim also discussed reimbursements to affected users. The attackers gained access to the platform on Sunday, leaving with digital assets running into millions.
Vault Contract compromised
Grim Finance thinks the attack was sophisticated and well planned. Security analysts at the company reveal the attackers exploited the deposit protocol of the platform. This opened a gateway, where further “loop attacks” were facilitated. The attackers compromised the vault contract which exposed the funds and treasury held within the protocol.
Grim is not the only DeFi structure that had been at the receiving end of planned attacks this year. The DeFi ecosystem is new and unregulated to a certain degree. While regulations and improvements will bring reprieve to the ecosystem of decentralized finance, a lot can still be desired for the emerging market.
Hackers are targeting DeFi
Black hat hackers continue to exploit the DeFi space going away with billions that they hijacked from the new protocols. While the DeFi space is bursting with new products and innovations, hackers have increased their activities to more sophisticated exploitation tactics. Rug pulls were the common scams that DeFi experienced earlier. In fact, several DeFi projects kicked off as rug pulls, deceiving users that lose their investment and enthusiasm for decentralized projects in the wake of the attack.
Two billion dollars had been lost to hackers from DeFi attacks the last five years. 75% of the scams, equivalent to a billion dollars in estimated stolen assets happened this year. The string of disappointments caused the downfall of small and popular DeFi projects. An example is BadgerDAO, a DeFi protocol that lost more than one hundred and twenty million dollars.
Two weeks ago, BadgerDAO, the DeFi platform pleaded with the hacker to recover the stolen fund amidst a total lockdown of transactions on its platform due to the hack. The DeFi platform released how they communicated to the hackers via on-chain messages on two wallets, where the hackers transferred the digital assets.
During that period, users were unable to do anything because smart contracts had been paused. AscendEX, another DeFi project, lost seventy-eight million dollars on the eve of a bitter hack.
This year, Poly Network had been exploited most by hackers. The exploit had resulted in more than six hundred million loss in crypto. The DeFi reported to have recovered almost everything, but it is clear that DeFi protocols are a prime target of deliberate attack. As an emerging market, DeFI requires a better security structure that will offer protection to users and their assets.