$3.5 Billion Bitcoin Heist, Biggest Crypto Hack Ever, Retroactively Uncovered

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Chinese language mining pool LuBian was hacked in 2020 for 127,426 Bitcoin (BTC), valued at about $3.5 billion on the time, making it the most important crypto hack in historical past, in keeping with blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence.

The platform retroactively uncovered the heist on Saturday, claiming that LuBian, which emerged because the sixth-largest BTC mining pool on the time, was first hacked on December 28, 2020. 

About 90% of the pool’s BTC was stolen by the menace actor earlier than LuBian was in a position to move its remaining 11,886 BTC to restoration wallets. Neither the platform nor the hacker publicized the assault on the time, the intelligence platform mentioned.

Cybercrime, Mining Pools, Cybersecurity, Hacks
Funds stolen from LuBian by means of a number of transactions. Supply: Arkham Intelligence

The mining pool embedded an OP_RETURN message to every of the pockets addresses belonging to the hacker in 1,516 completely different messages, which value it about 1.4 BTC. Arkham’s crew additionally wrote:

“It seems that LuBian was utilizing an algorithm to generate its non-public keys that was prone to brute-force assaults. This will likely have been the vulnerability exploited by the hackers.”

The stolen Bitcoin is now value about $14.5 billion at present costs, and the assault highlights the necessity for crypto customers to apply proactive security measures and personal key administration, counting on solely probably the most strong random quantity mills to create keys.

Cybercrime, Mining Pools, Cybersecurity, Hacks
The OP_Return messages despatched from LuBian to the hacker addresses. Supply: Arkham Intelligence

Associated: Crypto hacks top $142M in July, with CoinDCX leading losses

LuBian hack tops the ByBit hack and different notorious crypto heists

In February, the ByBit trade was hacked for $1.5 billion and the assault was reported as the only biggest crypto hack in history on the time.

The ByBit assault was attributed to a compromised SafeWallet developer machine, in keeping with a autopsy report from SafeWallet and cybersecurity agency Mandiant.

These hackers possible exploited the developer’s machine by putting in malware on the system after which utilizing that developer’s Amazon Net Providers (AWS) tokens whereas the developer was on-line and energetic.

This allowed the hackers to entry delicate programs with out setting off any alarm bells or triggering a response from the crew.

In April, an aged particular person lost $330 million in Bitcoin by means of a social engineering assault, which was laundered by means of 300 completely different pockets addresses.

The BTC heist was thought of the fifth-largest crypto heist in historical past on the time, and solely $7 million of the $330 million was frozen within the speedy wake of the assault.

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