Hacking Continues DeFi, Hacker Curi 732 Ether

DeFI's decentralized finance is prone to theft. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - Hacking and exploitation continue to disrupt the decentralized financial sector (DeFi) as the vanity wallet address joins DeFi's list of victims, who, collectively, have lost more than $1.6 billion in 2022.

In a warning published by blockchain security firm LokShield, a hacker was detected after stealing 732 Ether (ETH), about $950,000, from an address created on an ethereum wallet generator called Profanity. After draining the wallet, the exploiters sent crypto to the recently approved Tornado Cash crypto mixer.

Vanity's address is a special crypto wallet address created to include certain words or characters chosen by its owner. However, as recent exploits show, Vanity's address security remains in question.

Earlier this September, the Aggregator of decentralized exchanges (DEX) 1inch Network warned community members that their addresses were unsafe if made using Profancy.

DEX calls crypto holders with a vanity address to immediately transfer their assets. According to 1inch, the vanity address generator uses a random 32-bit vector to match the 256-bit private key, meaning it lacks security.

Following the DEX aggregator's warning, ZachXBT, blockchain investigator, announced that exploitation of vulnerabilities at Profancy has allowed some hackers to qualify with $3.3 million worth of digital assets.

On September 20, UK-based crypto market makers experienced exploits that cost $160 million. According to researcher Ajay Dhingra, the exploit was probably due to the company's hot wallet being compromised and manipulating bugs in smart contracts.

Reported by Cointelegraph, Evgeny Gaevoy, founder and CEO of the company, asked attackers to contact as they were open to treating exploitation as white hack hacking.