Suspects in $14m Holograph hack arrested by EU authorities

Police in Italy and France have made multiple arrests in connection with the $14 million attack on crypto protocol Holograph.

The Omnichain tokenization platform detailed the incident on X on August 14, stating that law enforcement in France and Italy have arrested multiple individuals suspected of being behind the theft of 1 billion local tokens worth 13 million euros (about $14.4 million).

Holograph Hack Arrests

After two months of incredibly intensive monitoring by the French Office for the Prevention of Cybercrime (OFAC), BRI, @EuropolItalian Anti-Mafia Investigations Directorate, & @Polislik_Cayman (RCIPS) are pleased to share that a large number of arrests have been made… pic.twitter.com/4ZF076tLkJ

— Holograph (@holographxyz) August 14, 2024

According to the Holograph (HLG) team, investigations into the incident were carried out by the Cybercrime Prevention Office and the Banditisme Repression Brigade in France, with assistance also received from Europol, the Italian Anti-Mafia Investigations Directorate and the Cayman Islands police.

French magazine Le Parisien described the suspects as Eastern Europeans in their 30s and reported that they had been arrested in Italy and were awaiting extradition to France. It also said authorities had seized electronics and frozen funds from the suspects.

The attack took place on June 13, and the attackers exploited Holograph’s operator contract and minted one billion HLG tokens using a proxy wallet.

Holograph Operator contract exploited by malicious actor, allowing hacker to mine 1 billion additional HLG

The team has patched the initial vulnerability and is working with exchange partners to lock malicious accounts

The team launched an investigation and…

— Holograph (@holographxyz) June 13, 2024

Following the incident, HLG lost over 80% of its value, dropping to $0.0029. Data from Crypto.news shows that the token has mostly traded below $0.003 since the attack, only briefly reaching $0.049 on July 2, coinciding with the publication of Holograph’s post-attack report.

At the time of writing, HLG was priced at $0.00231, up 28% in the last 24 hours. The token is up almost 60% on the week.

HLG 1-day price chart, June-August 2024 | Source: crypto.news

The autopsy found that a “disgruntled former contractor” of the platform was responsible for the exploit. The contractor allegedly used administrative access to insert malicious jobs into the platform’s smart contract and then executed them on June 13.

Additionally, data from Etherscan showed that the attacker converted the stolen funds into Tether (USDT) just a few hours after the attack.

The platform has since implemented operational risk controls aimed at preventing such incidents from occurring in the future.