Binance suspended withdrawals due to hacking of Ankr and Hay protocols
Attackers managed to steal more than $15 million worth of cryptocurrency, but Binance has frozen some of it
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has suspended withdrawals due to hacking of the Ankr and Hay (Helio) protocols, exchange head Changpeng Zhao wrote on Twitter in response to a report by cryptojournalist Colin Wu about attacks on cryptoprotocols. According to Zhao, initial analysis of the incident showed that a hacker had hacked into a developer's private key and replaced the smart contract with a malicious one.
First, the victim of the hack was Ankr protocol on the BNB Chain network. According to Wu, the attacker was able to create 10 trillion aBNBc tokens in the protocol and then transfer 900 BNB into the Tornado Cash mixer. Developers contacted DEX platforms to stop the trading, but the aBNBc token rate dropped 99.5% after the hack.
The hacker also exchanged 10 BNB for 183,384.92 aBNBc, converted it to hBNB and placed it in the Helio Protocol crypto. The attacker then borrowed $16 million worth of BHAY0 tokens and exchanged them for HAY0 coins, generating about $15 million, according to Peckshield. Stablecoin HAY has since lost its peg to the U.S. dollar, with its exchange rate dropping to $0.2. As of 11:30, the token price had recovered to $0.6.
Analysts reported that the attacker transferred some of the hacked funds to the Binance platform. However, Zhao said the platform froze about $3 million of it.
