Ongoing Solana-based wallet hack has already seen millions drained

Ongoing Solana-based wallet hack has already seen millions drained

Jessyca Feest August 3, 2022 Crypto Leave a comment 81 Views

A security vulnerability impacting the Solana ecosystem has reportedly seen millions in funds drained across a number of Solana-based wallets.

At the time of writing, Solana (SOL) is currently trending on Twitter as countless users are either reporting on the hack as it unfolds, or are reporting to have lost funds themselves, warning anyone with Solana-based hot wallets such as Phantom and Slope wallets to move their funds into cold wallets.

So far both Phantom, Slope, and Magic Eden are among those that have commented on the issue, with wallet provider Phantom noting that it is working with other teams to get to the bottom of the issue, although it says it does not “believe this is a Phantom-specific issue” at this stage.

Magic Eden confirmed the reports by stating that “seems to be a widespread SOL exploit at play that’s draining wallets throughout the ecosystem” as it called on users to revoke permissions for any suspicious links in their Phantom wallets.

Slope said it is currently working with Solana Labs and other Solana-based protocols to pinpoint the issue and rectify it, though there were “no major breakthroughs yet.”

Twitter user @nftpeasant has been following the incident closely, and according to their research via Solscan, around $6 million worth of funds have already been siphoned from Phantom wallets during a 10-minute period on August 2. In one instance it appears a Phantom wallet user had $500,000 worth of USDC drained from their account.

Popular scam detective and self-described “on-chain sleuth” @zachxbt also did some digging and revealed to their 274,800 followers that the hackers initially funded the primary wallet associated with this attack via Binance seven months ago.

Related: Solana-based stablecoin NIRV drops 85% following $3.5M exploit

The transaction history shows that the wallet remained dormant until today before the hackers conducted transactions with four different wallets 10 minutes before the attack started.

There have also been different reports on how many wallets have been affected and the extent of the damage so far.

Crypto tracking and compliance platform Mist Track stated via Twitter that as many as 8,000 wallets have been hacked, with $580 million sent to four addresses, however, comments on the post are skeptical about the number.

Meanwhile, Ava Labs CEO and founder Emin Gun Sirer stated that the number was at 7,000 plus wallets, a number which is rising at around 20 per minute. He said he believes that as the transactions appear to be signed properly, “it is likely that the attacker has acquired access to private keys.”

Cointelegraph has reached out to Phantom for comment on the matter and will update the story if the firm responds.