The particularity of this size operation is that at this time, no progress in research has made it possible to understand what was going on. We also do not know who is the author of these cryptocurrency thefts, nor the loophole through which the thieves would have managed to siphon Solana accounts. For the time being, 4 addresses have been identified but the progress of the research does not allow us to know who is hiding behind. On Twitter, a user observed that the addresses had been seen at the end of 2021 on Binance.
In a statement, a Solana spokesperson said that “engineers from multiple ecosystems, with the help of multiple security companies, are investigating depleted wallets on Solana. There is no evidence that hardware wallets are impacted”. Solana added, in an update this morning, that she ruled out the only possibility that the error came from her own network.
Scammers wallet funded via Binance 7 months agohttps://t.co/5gQbObcsg4 https://t.co/sco5SPBrne pic.twitter.com/AL6Hm4F3R3
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) August 3, 2022
As a reminder, Solana is currently the ninth cryptocurrency in the world in the ranking of the largest capitalizations. The project aims to compete with Ethereum by offering a blockchain and a much faster network in the processing of operations, in order to be able to deploy DeFi projects there more simply and economically. But for many, the Solana project is just an empty shell. The creators of Solana Labs are Qualcomm alumni.
Solana is a blockchain based on Proof Of Stake (POS) technology. However, what makes it unique is the use of an additional technological layer: the Proof Of History (POH). PoH is a new way of thinking about the network.
Solana wallets victims of the hack
Overall, accounts emptied are Phantom and Slope accounts. In the follow-up via Twitter of Solana support, we also learn that the majority of the accounts targeted are inactive accounts since a while. The spokesperson added that “Much remains unknown at this point – except that hardware wallets are unaffected. There are also numerous reports of compromised ETH wallets, but it is unclear if this is related or a separate issue.”
News that once again benefits the “cold” wallets, in other words physical wallets like the one from Ledger. On this kind of key, your cryptocurrencies are stored offline and you are the only one to have the private key, unlike platforms like Binance, Coinbase or even FTX where each wallet you open on a blockchain gives the platform access to this private key and the possibility for it to requisition your funds (for example in the event of an economic blow).
Explore Ledger wallets
As noted by our colleagues from Corner Newspaper, it is therefore better to protect your cryptocurrencies if it is not already done on your side. Similarly, remember to terminate your access authorizations to your wallets, the kind of procedure that you are likely not to come to complete when you interact with a smart contract or when you mint an NFT.
Solana hack still in progress. More information to come…