More than $600 million stolen in what is likely to be one of the biggest cryptocurrency thefts ever

More than $600 million has been stolen in what’s likely to be one of the biggest cryptocurrency thefts ever. Hackers exploited a vulnerability in Poly Network, a platform that looks to connect different blockchains so that they can work together. Poly Network disclosed the attack on Twitter and asked to establish communication with the hackers, and urged them to “return the hacked assets.”

“The amount of money you hacked is the biggest in defi history,” Poly Network said in another tweet. Once the hackers stole the money, they began to send it to various other cryptocurrency addresses. Researchers at security company SlowMist said a total of more than $610 million worth of cryptocurrency was transferred to three different addresses.

Poly Network urged cryptocurrency exchanges to “blacklist tokens” coming from the addresses that were linked to the hackers. About $33 million of Tether that was part of the theft has been frozen, according to the stablecoin’s issuer. Meanwhile, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance, said he was aware of the attack. He said Binance is “coordinating with all our security partners to proactively help,” but that “there are no guarantees.”

More than $600 million stolen in what is likely to be one of the biggest cryptocurrency thefts ever, CNBC, Aug 11