Was the $ 160 million winter mute hack an insider job?

Von Krypto News Österreich

  • An external hacker would not have the knowledge that is required for the contract execution, claimed Edwards
  • Wintermute must clarify how the attacker needed the necessary signature, he said

According to a blockchain analyst, the $ 160 million hack of the Market Makers Wintermute could have been an insider job.

The liquidity provider, one of the largest that is committed to crypto market making, was allegedly hacked in its defi operations (decentralized finances) on the basis of a recently discovered "Vanity Address" weak point. CEO Evgeny Gaevoy, who said the company was still solvent, asked the hacker to report, and offered a premium of 10 % if the money was returned.

But a new theory of James Edwards, which is known on Medium under the name Librehash, states that the hack could be attributed to the Wintermute's own team.

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But he contested this theory after analyzing the Smart Contract and his interactions, and came to the conclusion that the knowledge that is necessary for the hack, the possibility of the hacker was accidental or external.

Edwards noted that the smart contract in question has "no uploaded, verified code", which makes it difficult for external parties to confirm the external hacker theory, and the question of transparency.

"The relevant transactions initiated by the EOA make it clear that the hacker was probably an internal member of the Wintermute team," he wrote.

In addition, when he was performed by an Etherscan analysis, he said that the compromised smart contract received two deposits from the Hot Wallets from Kraken and Binance. "You can certainly assume that such a transfer must have been initiated by an exchange account controlled by the team," he said.

less than a minute after the compromised winter mute smart contract for 13 million in Tether (the total amount of this token) had been sent manually from the wallet to a contract that was allegedly checked by the hacker.

"We know that the team was aware that the Smart Contract was compromised at this point. he continued Twitter .

Edwards believes that the winter mute team should explain how the attacker has the necessary signature for the contract execution and would know which functions have to be called up because no contract source is published. He suggested that only someone with intimate knowledge would have the ability to do so.

Edwards is not a professional cyber security analyst and his blog about the Wintermute-Hack seems to be his first medium contribution. But he previously published Twitter-Threads, in which he analyzes possible money laundering at various crypto projects.

According to Marcus Sotiriou, analyst at global block, the large-scale theft was another flaw in the balance of the industry, since it would affect the trust of the Tradfi institutions (traditional financial institutions) that want to enter the room. "Since Wintermute was one of the largest liquidity providers in the industry, they could be forced to remove liquidity in order to reduce the risk of loss," he said.

Wintermute the request from Blockworks not answered a comment until the editorial deadline.

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The post was $ 160m winter mute hack on inside job? is not a financial advice.