Hackers hacked the Safemoon exchange and withdrew $9 million worth of crypto assets

Article Reading Time:
2 minutes.

Safemoon, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange based on the BNB Chain network, was hacked, as a result of which about $9 million was withdrawn from its liquidity pool.

“To the @SAFEMOON community: We would like to inform you that our LP [liquidity pool] has been compromised,” the exchange tweeted, adding that it is taking immediate action to resolve the issue.

According to the BscScan service, from the liquidity poolAlmost $9 million in crypto assets were withdrawn from the exchange. Cybersecurity specialists from the company Peckshield noted that a recent update to the exchange introduced a public burn function, which made hacking easier. This option allowed any user to burn tokens from another address.

The hacker was able to artificially raise the price of the SFM token, and then sold a sufficient number of tokens back to the liquidity pool in the same transaction, according to Peckshield.

“The attacker was able to burn most of the SFM, which increased the price of the token,” Peckshield explained.

A few hours after the hack, hackersadded a message to one transaction stating that they wanted the funds used back. According to PeckShield, hackers have already recovered more than $1.2 million worth of BNB.

“Hey, relax, we accidentally launched an attack against you, we would like to return the funds, set up a secure communication channel, let's talk,” the hackers wrote.

According to a recent PeckShield report, the totalIn February, $35.5 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen. The largest number of hacks - 141 - occurred on February 11. In February, the United Nations (UN) presented a report to the North Korea Sanctions Committee that found that North Korean hackers stole more crypto assets in 2022 than in any other year.