An algorithmic crypto market-making service based in the UK, Wintermute, has become the latest to get hacked by cybercriminals. Its protocol was broken through on Tuesday the 20th of September and the hackers made away with approximately $160 million from some 90 accounts on the platform.
Latest Hack Hits
News about the latest network breach came from Wintermute’s founder and CEO, Evgeny Gaevoy, via his Twitter page. Gaevoy said that the company has suffered an exploit of its DeFi protocol that led to a loss of approximately $160 million. He said further that the platform’s OTC and its CeFi operations were not in any way affected by the hack.
As Gaevoy announced that about $160 million were stolen from the network during the hack, he equally stated that 90 of their assets were hacked in the operation. He, however, said just two of the asset were notional beyond $1 million while none of them went over $2.5 million. This came up due to a significant selloff seen in those assets that should not have been in the first place.
Etherscan released some data where it showed that more than 70 various types of tokens were moved to Wintermute exploiter. The transferred items include USDC worth $61,350,986; 671 tokens of Wrapped Bitcoin; and USDT worth $29,461,533.
Wintermute Urges Calm
The company’s CEO gave assurance to all users, partners, and lenders of the platform that it is still very solvent with up to double the amount of money stolen from it still in equity. He added that equities associated with the company should be expected to restart their operations in a few days.
Anyone who has an MM agreement with the company is assured that their funds are safe. The company said it would have a disruption of its services from Tuesday and possibly for some days ahead and normal operation would resume later.
Gaevoy stated that the firm is going to treat the latest incident as nothing else but a white hat occurrence. This means it is open to negotiating with the hacker(s). In that case, the hacker would return most of the stolen funds but keep a little part of it, an agreed percentage.
The hacker might equally share information with the company about the loopholes they discovered in the network so they can avoid another hacker. White hat hacking is becoming regular within the crypto space, especially in the bearish market. Markets, exchanges, and firms usually reward such hackers with jobs or cash.