Crypto project mistakenly sends millions to attacker
The EigenLayer protocol team is investigating an incident in which an investor’s email thread was compromised, leading to the transfer of 1.6 million EIGEN tokens to an attacker.
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The EigenLayer protocol team is investigating an incident in which an investor’s email thread was compromised, leading to the transfer of 1.6 million EIGEN tokens to an attacker.
On October 4th, the EigenLayer protocol team announced they were "investigating unapproved selling activity associated" with a specific address that had sold around 1.6 million EIGEN tokens, now worth $5.5 million. At the time of writing, the address contains $160 worth of ethereum (ETH).
Soon after, the team explained that "in an isolated incident," an email thread involving one investor’s transfer of tokens into custody "was compromised by a malicious attacker."
Community Update:
undefined EigenLayer (@eigenlayer) October 4, 2024
In an isolated incident this morning, an email thread involving one investor’s transfer of tokens into custody was compromised by a malicious attacker.
As a result, 1,673,645 EIGEN tokens were erroneously transferred to the attacker’s address. The attacker…
"As a result, 1,673,645 EIGEN tokens were erroneously transferred to the attacker’s address," the team said. They added that the attacker sold the tokens via an unspecified decentralized swap platform and transferred stablecoins to centralized exchanges.
EigenLayer claims they are in contact with these platforms and law enforcement, while an unspecified share of the funds has been frozen.
Although there are no further details of the incident, the project’s developers stated that it has not impacted the broader EigenLayer ecosystem.
Additionally, "there is no known vulnerability in the protocol or token contracts, and this compromise was not related to any on-chain functionality."
EigenLayer is a so-called restaking protocol that allows ETH, already staked on the Ethereum blockchain, to be staked in other protocols as well. By staking ETH on Ethereum, users effectively lock their coins on the blockchain to participate in its governance and earn rewards in return. Staking and restaking are also coming into the Bitcoin ecosystem.