In the United States, the first-ever case of hacking a decentralized exchange was opened
Date: 2023-07-13 Author: Karina Ziganova Categories: BLOCKCHAIN, CRYPTO PAYMENTS
It is not officially clear which exchange we are talking about, but most likely the incident is related to the hacking of the Solana-based Crema Finance project
In the United States, the first-ever case of hacking a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange was opened. This was reported by the press service of the Prosecutor of the Southern District of New York.
It is reported that law enforcement agencies have already detained Shakib Ahmed on suspicion of stealing $9 million in cryptocurrency from a decentralized exchange. It is not officially clear which exchange we are talking about. The press release claims that Ahmed hacked a foreign platform based on the Solana network in July 2022.
The suspect managed to pull off the attack with the help of a flaw in the source code of the smart contract of the trading platform. With the help of a flash loan, Ahmed introduced fake values, receiving $ 9 million in cryptocurrency in the form of deductions from the protocol, the prosecutor's office claims.
Later, the hacker returned the stolen cryptocurrency to the exchange, keeping $1.5 million on the condition that the developers of Crema Finance would not contact law enforcement.
However, it seems that the developers have decided not to adhere to their obligations under the deal. According to prosecutors, Ahmed was a senior engineer at an international technology company (according to media reports, he worked for Amazon). In his resume, he indicated his skills in auditing blockchain projects, which also helped the investigation to reach him. In addition, the evidence base against Ahmed indicates that after the hack, he was looking for news about the incident, and also tried to find a way to leave the United States.
The time period indicated by the prosecutor's office for hacking the site coincides with the incident around the Crema Finance project. The project is deployed on the basis of Solana and was hacked in July 2022. Then, as a result of the attack, the project lost $ 6 million just because of the attack based on a flash loan.
