Peckshied, a leading blockchain security firm, has confirmed the transfer of 1,900 ETH by exploiters of Grim Finance to Tornado Cash. The security firm shared the details of the transactions on its verified Twitter handle on Thursday. As reported, the exploiter, with the 0x9882238 address moved the funds, equivalent to $3.1 million to the virtual currency mixer.
Notably, this development manifested despite the ban on Tornado cash virtual currency mixer by the U.S Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Recall that OFAC had in early August sanctioned the mixer after it became an avenue for hackers to launder funds. According to the agency, Tornado Cash had, since its creation, been used to launder over $7 billion worth of cryptocurrencies. Notably, a popular hacking team in North Korea, Lazarus Group used Tornado cash to siphon over $455 million.
More so, Tornado Cash aided the laundering of over $96 million stolen by hackers of Harmony Bridge. Similarly, exploiters of Nomad also transferred $7.8 million to the virtual currency mixer. This, as reported, informed the decision of the agency to ban Tornado Cash.
Ban on Tornado Cash by Treasury
The Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, noted that Treasury “is sanctioning Tornado Cash, a virtual currency mixer that launders the proceeds of cyber crimes, including those committed against victims in the United States.” Nelson noted that “despite public assurances otherwise, Tornado Cash has repeatedly failed to impose effective controls designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors on a regular basis and without basic measures to address its risks.” He reaffirmed the commitment of Treasury to “aggressively pursue actions against mixers that launder virtual currency for criminals and those who assist them.” However, despite the ban, it appears hackers still use Tornado to siphon funds as obtainable in Grim finance’s case.
Exploitation of Grim Finance
Worth noting that the exploitation on Grim Finance manifested last December. However, the hacker, as revealed by Peckshield, began to move the funds to Tornado a day ago. Reportedly, the hacker stole over $30 million worth of fantom tokens stolen during the exploitation. Grim Finance said the hacker used a “reentrancy” exploit to steal funds. The team immediately took numerous preventive measures to stop further damage. Then, the protocol suspended all vaults to arrest the situation. More so, it asked USDC issuer Circle, AnySwap and Maker to freeze any assets related to the exploit.
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