Only ten days after the Platypus hack on the Avalanche blockchain, the National Police arrested two suspects who are believed to be behind the facts. Nevertheless, a large part of the stolen funds would have been lost.
Two suspects apprehended by the National Police for the Platypus hack
This weekend, the National Police said they had arrested two peoplesuspected of being behind the hack suffered by the decentralized finance protocol (DeFi) Platypus (PTP) about ten days ago:
[#Cybercriminalité]There #National Police puts an end to a major scam for a loss of 9.5 million 💰 on an American cryptocurrency exchange company.
Arrest and summons to court of 2 individuals
👉seizure of €210,000 in cryptocurrencies#Federal police pic.twitter.com/rKKuG95cWh– National Police (@NationalPolice) February 24, 2023
If the height of the damage had been initially announced at 8.5 million dollars, it was reassessed at 9.5 million.
Although as such, this attack is far from breaking records in terms of stolen funds, it is a case particularly notable for the speed of the investigation.
As a reminder, the onchain investigator ZachXBT had managed to trace back to the attackerby finding a link between the different addresses, pointing to an Ethereum Name Service (ENS) using the same nickname as its social networks:
Hi @retlqw since you deactivated your account after I messaged you.
I’ve traced addresses back to your account from the @Platypusdefi exploit and I am in touch with their team and exchanges.
We’d like to negotiate returning of the funds before we engage with law enforcement. pic.twitter.com/oJdAc9IIkD
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) February 17, 2023
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Are the majority of stolen funds lost?
The recklessness of the attacker, as well as the responsiveness of the various stakeholders, led to this quick arrest which took place on Wednesday. For their part, the Platypus teams also thanked the National Police, ZachXBT, but also Binance:
Update: @National Police have arrested and summoned 2 suspects who were reportedly exploiting our platform.
Thanks to the assistance of @binance and @zachxbt in tracing their identities.
Kudos to the prompt action by the authorities!— Platypus 🔺 (🦆+🦦+🦫) (@Platypusdefi) February 25, 2023
The two suspects are two brothers aged 18 and 20, the eldest would have carried out the attack, while the younger would have benefited from the stolen money. In total, they could have recovered “only” the equivalent of 270,000 euros, and the Police were able to seize 210,000, most certainly on the Binance account of the person concerned. These two people were placed under judicial supervision pending a summons to court, following police custody.
For its part, Platypus had already been able to recover 2.4 million USDC. As for the remaining sum, it was relayed to our colleagues at AFP that it was “out of everyone’s reach“.
In fact, it seems that these words refer to multi-million dollar stablecoins, stored on a smart contract created by the attacker. We can see this on Snowtrace, the explorer of the C-Chain of Avalanche, the blockchain on which Platypus operates:
Address of a smart contract involved in the Platypus hack
The real question is therefore whether law enforcement just waiting for a court decision to confiscate the private keys giving control of these funds, or if the attacker actually lost control over this smart contractin which case those stablecoins would effectively be lost forever.
For its part, Platypus announces that the USP pool targeted by the attack will resume operation tomorrow. In addition, impacted users will have access to a page offering them a visual of their assets before the hack, so that they can claim compensation in the future:
We’re pleased to inform our users that we are now working on a page that will enable you to check your pre-attack balance, post-attack USP-related actions, and the amount you’ll be eligible to claim once the first compensation is ready.
It will be available on Feb 27th. 🧵— Platypus 🔺 (🦆+🦦+🦫) (@Platypusdefi) February 25, 2023
👉 Also in the news – Wormhole hack: the thief of 120,000 ETH gets hacked in turn
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Sources: Snowtrace, AFP
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I timidly discovered the world of blockchain at the end of 2018 during my quest for financial freedom. Initially invested moderately, it was only two years later that I took the gamble of betting everything on the movement that was taking shape then. I then dedicate 2021 to training myself better to acquire more knowledge and seriousness. As I often like to say: I still have a billion things to learn. And what I do know, I want to share with you.
Vincent Mayor
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