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Wormhole’s Exploiter Gets ‘Counter-Hacked’ by Oasis Platform
Back in February 2022, the Wormhole cryptocurrency platform was hacked for a total of 321 million USD’s worth of wrapped ETH ($wETH) through a vulnerability in the protocol’s token bridge.
Ultimately, the hacker was able to get away with it and move the stolen funds through different Ethereum-based decentralized applications. The Oasis platform was one of the dApps that fell victim to the attack. But, to the hacker’s surprise, the Oasis platform teamed up with the Web 3.0 infrastructure firm Jump Crypto to launch a counterattack and get the stolen assets back.
The Oasis team announced on February 24 2023 that they had received an order from the High Court of England and Wales to retrieve, by all means necessary, the assets associated with the Wormhole exploit. The operation consisted of a group of white hat hackers (“ethical hackers”) who suggested a change in Oasis’ smart contracts to exploit the hacker’s assets through a vulnerability.
The hack took place on February 21 2023, when the hackers were able to retrieve 120,695 $wsETH, 3,213 $rETH, and 78 million USD’s worth of $DAI. All these assets were placed in wallets under Jump Crypto’s control. It is understood that the counterattack was able to get 225 USD’s million worth of crypto back from the 321 million USD that was originally stolen.
Although the crypto community is against scammers and hackers taking over people’s assets, there is some level of concern for how this situation played out. Ultimately, it only took a court order to mobilize this level of action.
Some crypto enthusiasts have raised concerns on Twitter over whether or not this counter-exploit was the best solution for the crypto space. As some stated, this might set a new precedent. Others have been wondering what would happen if the US Court decided to take any measures against users in the US.
These concerns are valid and, as we have seen from this incident, a real possibility in the future. People enter the crypto space thinking their assets are safe from governments and higher forces, but this situation has definitely proved them wrong. The question now is how “decentralized” these DeFi protocols really are.
Sources: cointelegraph.com, blog.oasis.app
analyst opinion
Diego Kebork
Ultimately, the hacker was able to get away with it and move the stolen funds through different Ethereum-based decentralized applications. The Oasis platform was one of the dApps that fell victim to the attack. But, to the hacker’s surprise, the Oasis platform teamed up with the Web 3.0 infrastructure firm Jump Crypto to launch a counterattack and get the stolen assets back.
The Oasis team announced on February 24 2023 that they had received an order from the High Court of England and Wales to retrieve, by all means necessary, the assets associated with the Wormhole exploit. The operation consisted of a group of white hat hackers (“ethical hackers”) who suggested a change in Oasis’ smart contracts to exploit the hacker’s assets through a vulnerability.
The hack took place on February 21 2023, when the hackers were able to retrieve 120,695 $wsETH, 3,213 $rETH, and 78 million USD’s worth of $DAI. All these assets were placed in wallets under Jump Crypto’s control. It is understood that the counterattack was able to get 225 USD’s million worth of crypto back from the 321 million USD that was originally stolen.
Although the crypto community is against scammers and hackers taking over people’s assets, there is some level of concern for how this situation played out. Ultimately, it only took a court order to mobilize this level of action.
Some crypto enthusiasts have raised concerns on Twitter over whether or not this counter-exploit was the best solution for the crypto space. As some stated, this might set a new precedent. Others have been wondering what would happen if the US Court decided to take any measures against users in the US.
These concerns are valid and, as we have seen from this incident, a real possibility in the future. People enter the crypto space thinking their assets are safe from governments and higher forces, but this situation has definitely proved them wrong. The question now is how “decentralized” these DeFi protocols really are.
Sources: cointelegraph.com, blog.oasis.app
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