The person behind the 2023 Euler Finance hack has congratulated the Penpie exploiter after he moved most of the funds they stole to Tornado Cash.
The thief Penpie transferred the money even though the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform asked for the funds to be returned in exchange for a reward.
The $27 Million Penpie Protocol Hack
On September 6, blockchain security company Peckshield made a publication at X with the Euler Finance exploiter’s message to the Penpie protocol attacker that read:
“Good job bro. Haven’t seen a trick like this in a while. I’m glad you kept all the money and didn’t let those b*stards get back a single dollar of what you took. You won. They lost. Good job .”
Earlier this month, the decentralized protocol was attacked and the culprits stole about $27 million worth of Ether (ETH). Just 12 hours after the occurrence, the criminal funneled $7 million through the Tornado Cash crypto mixer.
According to Peckshield, the perpetrator recently transferred about $17 million in crypto to an intermediate address and subsequently laundered more than $13 million of the funds through the mixer. To date, the suspect has sent 9.6K ETH (about $23 million) to Tornado Cash.
In the wake of the hack, Penpie’s team halted withdrawals and deposits to investigate what happened and even reportedly went to the police station in Singapore’s Kampong Java neighborhood to report the matter.
Crypto Hacks on the Rise
In 2023, Euler Finance suffered a flash loan attack and lost nearly $200 million in crypto. Several weeks after the event, the thief returned the stolen money and apologized via encrypted messaging.
Identified only as Jacob by Chainalysis, he started by handing over 54,000 ETH (3,000 on March 18 and 51,000 on March 25) to Euler, followed by 7,000 ETH and $10 million in DAI a few days later.
Although the cybercriminal eventually returned the funds, the exploit caused the DeFi protocol to add a modular layer called Euler v2 to manage risks that could make the lending network vulnerable.
Judging by the author’s recent chain message to the Penpie hacker, his apology clearly hadn’t been genuine.
A recent report by PeckShield revealed that crypto platforms suffered alarming losses exceeding $313 million due to hackers alone in August 2024. More than 90% of these attacks, which saw platforms they lost more than 238 million dollars, originated by fishing.
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