October continues its unwanted record for cryptocurrency exploitation after Celo-based lending and borrowing protocol, Moola Market suffered an attack that claimed about $10 million. Though official statement from Moola Market disclosed that it has recovered about 93% of the stolen funds.
However, the attack underlines how projects in the cryptocurrency space are now at the mercy of hackers. The manner in which the attack on Moola Market took place marks the second of its type in the past few weeks. The hacker manipulated the value of Moola Market native coin MOO to borrow collateral against their position. The manipulation aided the attacker in draining the protocol seamlessly.
Furthermore, the Moola Market team divulged that the attack commenced late Tuesday; Asian hour. The team said “An unknown attacker started manipulating the price of MOO on Ubeswap, allowing the attacker to manipulate the MOO TWAP price oracle used by the Moola protocol.”
Oracles are the external solution that provides data to a blockchain from secondary sources.
So, the hacker borrowed a huge amount of cUSD, cEUR, and CELO from the protocol submitting MOO as collateral. Aiding the hacker in draining the protocol. eUSD and eEUR are Celo-stablecoins pegged to the U.S dollar and Euro. Immediately after the attack, the Moola Market team halted trading activities on the platform.
The team contacted law enforcement agencies immediately after they became conscious of the attack. Shortly after that, an individual contacted the the Moola Market team, claiming to be the attacker. Then, the team began to negotiate with the hacker, resulting in the refund of 93% of the stolen funds.
How Moola Market attack marks new height for exploitation on DeFi platforms
As at last Thursday, report from the popular Blockchain analytical firm, Chainalysis indicates that over 11 attacks had taken place on DeFi platforms. The recent attack on Moola Market adds to the $718 million DeFi platforms had suffered in the first two weeks of October.
According to experts, the alarming rate of hacks on DeFi platforms might emanate an unwanted record for 2022. The year is on the verge of surpassing the total amount of funds stolen from DeFi platforms in 2021. Aside the attack on Moola Market and Bitkeep wallet, the crypto space has lost $3 billion across 125 hacks.
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