Web3 infrastructure platform Ankr faced a major exploit earlier today. It turned out that the hacker stole millions of dollars from the platform. According to initial details, the hacker reportedly minted 10 trillion Ankr Reward Bearing Staked BNB (aBNBc). Meanwhile, the altcoin price fell. Here are the details…
DeFi protocol suffered hacking attack
DeFi protocol Ankr, which calls itself the first “node-as-a-service” platform, suffered a multi-million dollar exploit due to a bug in its code that allowed unlimited printing of the token. According to security research firm PeckShield, the code behind the Ankr contract allows any user to mint unlimited amounts of the protocol’s reward-bearing staking tokens without any verification. This allowed the attacker to mint as many as six quadrillions of the aBNBc token.
Previously, BNB Chain launched its liquid staking function through Ankr. This allowed users to earn interest by allocating BNB tokens to the liquid staking contract while acquiring aBNBc. The reason behind the exploit could be a vulnerability in the smart contract or a compromise in private keys. Citing data from DeBank, crypto reporter Colin Wu reported:
0x8d… Ankr exploited the vulnerability, used 10 BNB to trade 183,384.92 aBNBc and then converted it to hBNB. To overpay $16 million in BHAY0, he invested it in Helio Protocol and traded it to HAY0. Stablecoin HAY dropped to $0.2.
0x8d… took advantage of the Ankr loophole, used 10 BNB to exchange 183,384.92 aBNBc, and then converted to hBNB and staked it into Helio Protocol to lend more than $16m BHAY0 and exchanged it into HAY0. The stablecoin HAY once fell to $0.2. https://t.co/TcpfWTVwlx https://t.co/QO9tFImgB9
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) December 2, 2022
ANKR confirmed the hack
Web3 infrastructure platform Ankr confirmed the hack in its latest tweets. ANKR’s tweet stated that “aBNB token has been abused”. He also added that they are working with exchanges to stop trading. Stating that the assets in Ankr Staking are safe, the project stated that other infrastructure services are not affected by the situation.
All underlying assets on Ankr Staking are safe at this time, and all infrastructure services are unaffected.
— Ankr (@ankr) December 2, 2022
There have been major hacks this year that lost billions of dollars in investor funds. These exploits have become quite evident in the decentralized finance (DeFi) market. cryptocoin.com As we reported, in October, $100 million worth of Binance Coins were stolen after the hack on BNB Chain. That same month, Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Mango Markets was the victim of an attack, losing $100 million.
Altcoin price drops
Ankr is a web3 infrastructure provider for the BNB Chain ecosystem. It is a cloud computing platform that distributes idle computing power. The native ANKR token can be mined by supplying computing power to the network. It also offers various staking and earning options in BEP-20 tokens. Currently, ANKR has dropped from $0.228 to $0.2086. The coin has lost 5% of its value in the last 24 hours.
On the other hand, after the exploit, the price of aBNBc dropped by 99.5 percent.
