Hackers steal $100 million worth digital coins from US crypto firm Harmony
Crpto heist
On Friday, US crypto firm Harmony claimed that hackers stoledigital coins worth close to $100 million from one of their key products, reported Reuters. Hackers have targeted the crypto sector for a long time, and this is an addition to the string of cyber heists in the recent past.
The crypto firm builds blockchains for what is referred to as decentralised finance - peer-to-peer sites offering services such as loans without the traditional gatekeepers such as banks and non-fungible tokens.
In a statement, Harmony claimed that it had a global team working tirelessly to address the issue.
Harmony added that the heist hit their Horizon "bridge," which is a tool for transferring crypto between different blockchains. It is also essentially the underlying software that is also used by other digital tokens like bitcoin and ether.
Blockchain bridges are being increasingly targeted, and several crypto firms are experiencing such forms of theft.
According to London-based blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, over $1 billion has been stolen from bridges since the beginning of 2022.
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"Working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds," Harmony tweeted without any additional details.
A spokesperson from Harmony added that "We are currently narrowing down the potential attack vectors while working to identify the culprit."
The person also claimed that the company had already tried to contact the hacker through a transaction to their crypto wallet address.
According to Elliptic, which tracks publicly visible blockchain data, the hackers had stolen multiple different cryptocurrencies from Harmony, which includes ether, Tether, and USD Coin, which was later swapped for ether using the seemingly decentralised exchanges.
Hackers have stolen nearly $615 million worth of cryptocurrency in March alone from Ronin Bridge which is used to transfer crypto in and out of the game Axie Infinity. The theft is being linked to North Korean hackers.
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