A hacker managed to create 6 quadrillion aBNBc tokens of the Ankr decentralized finance protocol by exploiting a flaw in his smart contract. The recipe for this attack on this BNB Chain protocol would amount to more than 4.5 million dollars.
Ankr protocol comes under attack after update
The alert was given on Twitter by PeckShield, a company specializing in blockchain security. The attacker obviously created 6 quadrillion Ankr Reward Bearing Staked BNB (aBNBc)the reward token obtained for BNB staked on the Ankr protocol.
Analysts explain that the attacker used a loophole in the aBNBc smart contract allowing him to mint as many tokens as he wants. This vulnerability in Ankr’s smart contract code was reportedly introduced during a technical upgrade carried out 12 hours before the attack.
#PeckShieldAlert Seems like @ankr has been exploited, $aBNBc has dropped -50%, tons of $aBNBc have minted to https://t.co/nyfwdd6fWI
and the exploit transferred some of the stolen funds to Tornado cash or bridged them via celer and deBridgeGate to Ethereum @peckshield pic.twitter.com/vK94dIEWIt—PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) December 2, 2022
The attacker has since used the Tornado Cash protocol and various bridges to exchange his funds and recover nearly $4.5 million in different cryptocurrencies:
- 900 BNB: approximately $250,000;
- 3,000 ETH: approximately $3.8 million;
- USDC500,000.
Ankr quickly confirmed the attack on Twitter, stating that “all underlying assets on Ankr Staking are safe at this time, and none of the infrastructure services are affected” :
All underlying assets on Ankr Staking are safe at this time, and all infrastructure services are unaffected.
— Ankr (@ankr) December 2, 2022
A vertiginous fall of the aBNBc token
This massive creation of new tokens drastically caused the price of the aBNBc to fall, going from 305 dollars to a few dust cents in less than 30 minutes :
The price of aBNBc / WBNB begins a dizzying fall following the Ankr hack
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Graphic source: DEX Screener
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Editor-in-chief of Cryptoast, I discovered Bitcoin and blockchain technology in 2017. Since then, I have been striving to share quality content so that the sector becomes more democratic for everyone.
Clement Wardzala
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