Nexera, a DeFi protocol, has been hit by a smart contract security breach that led to the theft of $1.5 million in NXRA tokens.
After the incident, the value of the protocol’s native token was reduced by more than 40%.
$1.5M Heist And NXRA Token Drops 43%
The exploit was first reported on August 7 by Cyvers, a blockchain security company, via a post on X that said: “Our system has detected a suspicious transaction involving your proxy agreement”.
According to the publication, an unidentified address gained control of Nexera’s proxy contract and subsequently updated it to gain access to administrative functions. Using the withdraw administration function, the attacker transferred all available NXRA tokens out of the contract.
Cyvers added that the stolen NXRA tokens are already being converted to Ethereum (ETH) and some of the funds have already been connected to Binance Smart Chain (BNB).
Hackers often exchange their stolen tokens for Ether to hide the source of the funds using cryptocurrency mixers like Tornado Cash, complicating the tracking efforts of cybersecurity firms.
The NXRA witness felt the impact of the hack almost immediately. Data from CoinGecko shows that NXRA is down 43.2% and is now trading at $0.0343. It also hit an all-time low of $0.01942 on August 7, 2024, although it has since recovered 76.5% from that low.
Nexera Hack linked to previous attacks
According to the chain’s data, this is not the first malicious activity attributed to the exploiter. Chain sleuth ZachXBT linked the attacker to a series of previous private key compromises involving several other platforms, including SpaceCatch, Concentric Finance, OKX DEX, Serenity Shield, and Reach.
In response to Nexera’s post, ZachXBT noted that teams continue to fall for the same types of scams nearly a year later.
This breach is the latest in a series of high-profile security incidents in the DeFi space. Just a day earlier, the Ronin network was mined for $9.8 million worth of ETH, although the alleged white hat hacker returned all funds within hours.
Also, almost three weeks ago, a hacker stole over $230 million from WazirX, an Indian cryptocurrency exchange, marking the second largest cryptocurrency hack of 2024.
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