Qubit Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, has become the latest victim of a massive heist, with hackers stealing around €80 million worth of cryptocurrencies just a few days ago. The value of stolen cryptocurrency makes this the largest hack of 2022 so far.
Qubit Finance acknowledges the hack in an incident report published through the Medium platform. According to the report, the hack happened around 5 in the morning. Qubit provides a service known as “bridging” between different blockchains (blockchain technology), which means that deposits made in one cryptocurrency can be withdrawn in another. Qubit Finance operates a bridge between Ethereum and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) network.
The biggest crypto heist of the year
Analysis produced by CertiK, a blockchain security and audit firm, suggests that the hacker was able to exploit a security hole in Qubit’s smart contract code that allowed them to send a deposit of 0 ETH and, in return, withdraw almost 80 million in Binance Coin.
Analysts insist that as we move from a world dominated by Ethereum to a truly multi-chain world (with many alternative cryptocurrencies on the market), these bridges will become increasingly important as people need to move funds from a blockchain. to another, although of course they must do so in a way that they are not susceptible to theft by hackers.
In a statement posted on Qubit Finance’s corporate profile on Twitter, the company recounted how it directly contacted the hacker and asked him to negotiate with the team to minimize the losses of the Qubit community affected by the hack.
Qubit’s preliminary incident report also indicated that the team was trying to offer the hacker the maximum possible reward under its bug bounty program. Although, as it has been known, this reward would not even reach 25,000 dollars, an amount infinitely less than the 80 million that the hacker managed to steal.
Since the launch of Binance Smart Chain in 2020, several DeFi projects have suffered from cyber heists. The most serious include a €31 million hack of Meerkat Finance in March 2021, a €50 million hack of Uranium Finance in April, and an €88 million hack of Venus Finance in May of the same year.
