Hackers had stolen cryptocurrencies worth $ 600 million through a hole. But part of it was quickly blocked. Now the hackers came forward claiming it wasn’t about the money.
It is considered the biggest theft in the history of the crypto exchanges: Hackers stole the equivalent of 600 million dollars (almost 510 million euros) in several crypto currencies from the exchange network Poly Network. Now they have commented on the huge robbery for the first time. But different from what you would expect.
“It could have been a billion-dollar hack if we’d also taken the remaining nonsense coins,” wrote the hackers. It is clear that this is the case: The statement is the text accompanying a transaction from the digital exchange (wallet) into which the money was transferred after the theft. So it definitely comes from the hackers themselves.
Fast clearing up
They seem to be annoyed about the current situation. Some of the money has already been blacklisted and cannot be moved back and forth with it. In addition, experts want to have found out the IP address and e-mail addresses of the hackers. Investigative agencies, like the FBI, are also looking into the case. Security firm SlowMist said they had “offered Poly Network some information about the hackers that we’d like to share with them.” One hopes for a “happy ending” of the story, said the head of the company, the blockchain-specialized blog “The Block”.
The hackers are now stubbornly claiming that it is not about the gigantic amount of money anyway. “I’m less interested in money, I’m considering returning some of the tokens or just leaving them here,” the message mentioned above continues. In fact, they have already started doing it. First they announced in a transaction note that they wanted to transfer money back. That probably went wrong on the first attempt, in a second they asked for a return wallet from Poly Network. And shortly afterwards they actually gave money back. So far, however, only $ 1.11 million has returned to the original owner in three transactions.
Begging for the loot of millions
The hack had caused a stir in the scene. In addition to the high amount, this was mainly due to the method: While poor protection of the wallet and stolen passwords were usually exploited, this time the hackers managed to outsmart the encryption themselves. As a result, several platforms stopped trading to be on the safe side.
However, the hackers also met with a lot of approval. One person, for example, gave them the tip via a transaction not to move certain coins in order to prevent the coins from being blocked. The hackers showed their appreciation: They transferred 13.37 ethers, which corresponds to about 36,000 euros. The amount corresponds to the expression “1337”, a modified form of elite, which has been popular in IT circles for decades. The tipster, however, passed the money on to several crypto organizations.
Subsequently, however, a few other people contacted the hackers. According to the Heimdal Security blog, some are giving tips on how to launder the money, while others are openly begging. “Dear hackers, I have three children and my wife is going through chemotherapy for her cancer,” one of the messages reads.
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