On October 18th, hackers attacked Moola Market, a Celo protocol, and stole over $8.4 million. The platform immediately stopped operations following the attack. Moola advised users to stop all activities on the protocol.
How The Attack Happened
According to reports, the exploit occurred on October 18th. The hackers reportedly manipulated the protocol and stole $8.4 million.
Igor Iganberdiev, a blockchain researcher, said the hackers got 243,000 CELO from Binance. Afterward, they loaned 60,000 CELO to Moola as collateral so they could borrow 1.8 million MOO.
MOO is the native token of the Moola platform. The hackers then allegedly pumped the MOO together with the CELO. This increased the price to $5.6 from $0.018 in one hour.
As a result, they could use the MOO as collateral to get other tokens before the price dipped to $0.36. The hackers got over 1.8 million MOO ($655,000), 644,000 cUSD, and 765,000 cEUR.
Hackers Return Over 93% Of Stolen Funds
Meanwhile, the hackers have returned over 93% of the funds that were stolen. This is a welcome development for the Moola ecosystem. Besides, Moola had reached out to the necessary authorities concerning the case.
The firm issued a bounty if the attackers sent back the assets within 24 hours. Meanwhile, Moola Market was happy as the funds were returned.
The DeFi project has promised to ensure no such occurrences occur in the future. However, the company is still working towards recovering the remaining funds from the hackers.
Before proceeding, the platform highlighted that a governance vote is presently underway, and they would make changes depending on the results.
“If this request is approved, we will be able to reopen the protocol in a secure and wise manner, reducing potential hazards to Moola users,” Moonla noted.
Hackers Attack Several Crypto Platforms In October
Earlier, hackers attacked the Bitkeep exchange. The platform lost over $1 million through the BNB chain.
However, in both incidents, the hackers refunded most of the assets. It appears the new trend is for hackers to hack platforms and then strike a deal to keep some of the funds while they return the rest.
Meanwhile, the recent attack on Moola is not as severe as that of the BNB network. Hackers stole over $200 million from the network.
This month, the crypto sector has witnessed a slew of cyber attempts, which analysts called “Hacktober.” As per chainalysis, the sector has seen 11 distinct cyber assaults with around $718 million stolen. October became the busiest month of the year in terms of hacker activities.