Over $600 million Was Stolen In What Could Be The Largest Crypto Heist Of All Time

In what is being concluded as one of the biggest cryptocurrency thefts, over $600 million has been stolen from Poly Network by Hackers. Poly Network acts like a bridge connecting different blockchains so that they can work together. According to the information on the company’s website, it is built to implement interoperability between multiple chains in order to build the next-generation internet infrastructure. What this means is that authorized homogeneous and heterogeneous public blockchains can connect to Poly Network through an open, transparent admission mechanism and communicate with other blockchains. Poly Network has already integrated Bitcoin, Ethereum, Neo, Ontology, Elrond, Ziliqa, Binance Smart Chain, Switcheo, and Huobi ECO Chain on its platform and is open to  more institutions and organizations seeking to join in building the “next-generation internet”.

The attack on the network was disclosed via Twitter. “The amount of money you hacked is the biggest in DeFi history”, one of its tweets read. The hacker(s) who stole the asset exploited a vulnerability in Poly Network, and the company had urged the hacker(s) to return the stolen assets.

According to researchers at security company SlowMist, immediately the assets were stolen, the hacker(s) sent them to three different addresses. The researchers also revealed that a total of $610 million was stolen from Poly Network.

Poly Network has since requested cryptocurrency exchanges to blacklist tokens received from addresses linked to the theft. According to its issuer, about $33 million worth of Tether that was part of the stolen coin has been frozen.

Binance’s CEO; Changpeng Zhao showed concern about the attack. He said that the company is “coordinating with all our security partners to proactively help,” while also adding that “there are no guarantees.”

Poly Network is not resting on the issue and has promised to take legal action. “We will take legal actions and we urge the hackers to return the assets,” it tweeted.

Security company SlowMist  tweeted that their researchers had “grasped the attacker’s mailbox, IP, and device fingerprints” and are “tracking possible identity clues related to the Poly Network attacker.” The researchers have also concluded that the theft was “likely to be a long-planned, organized and prepared attack.”

According to CoinDesk, at about 4:00 UTC on Wednesday, the hacker said in a message embedded in an Ethereum transaction with themselves that they were ready to return the funds. In another message, they said they had failed to contact Poly Network and asked for a multi-signature wallet to return the loot. The report also stated that the hacker said they were already a “legend” after pulling off what some, including China-based Poly Network, have described as the largest DeFi hack in history.