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Thousands of Solana Wallets Attacked, Millions Stolen.

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An ongoing Solana (SOL) hack has impacted over 8,000 wallets and drained an estimated USD 4.5M-USD 8M in funds. Four addresses linked to hackers have stolen up to USD 580 million in crypto assets from over 8,000 wallets, according to data compiled by crypto tracking platform MistTrack.

MistTrack, on the other hand, stated that, excluding the value of EXIST and “other shitcoins,” USD 4.5 million in SOL, USDC, USDT, bitcoin (BTC), and ethereum (ETH) were stolen.
Nonetheless, blockchain researcher PeckShield estimated a larger loss, stating:

“So far, the loss is estimated to be USD 8 million, excluding illiquid shitcoins (only 30 holds & possibly overvalued [USD] 570 million).”

Users began reporting that their funds had been drained without their knowledge from major internet-connected “hot” wallets such as Phantom, Slope, and TrustWallet as the hack began. Some affected users claim they haven’t interacted with any contracts in over 40 days. The transactions are signed by the actual owners, according to blockchain auditor OtterSec, implying a private key compromise. They advised all affected wallet users to transfer their assets “to a hardware [wallet] or a centralized exchange.”

The exact cause of the hack is still unknown, but it appears to have primarily impacted mobile wallet users.

Engineers from multiple ecosystems are investigating drained wallets on Solana, with the assistance of several security firms, according to the Solana team.

“There is no evidence that hardware wallets have been compromised,” they added.

Phantom, on the other hand, stated that “at this time, the team does not believe this is a Phantom-specific issue.”

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Only a token-specific delegation, an auto approve, or a leaked seed, according to Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, could transfer assets from a wallet on behalf of the user.

“Because system transfers are taking place, delegation is out. There is no way a “interaction” could expose a wallet “He continued.

Yakovenko later stated that this appears to be an iOS supply chain attack, noting that imported keys were also compromised, and that

“Multiple plausible wallets that only received sol and had no interactions other than receiving have been affected,” […] “as well as keys imported into iOS and generated externally.”

He also asked the community if any of them had been impacted by the attack on an Android wallet, with the seed phrase being used exclusively in that android wallet.

In terms of resolving the issue, Yakovenko advocated for increased security on the part of Apple and Google.

Others have speculated that a trusted third-party service may have been compromised in a so-called supply chain attack

because the hacker gained the ability to sign transactions on behalf of users.

“Confirmed with the cross chain user that their TrustWallet seed phrase was imported into Slope. Both Slope and TrustWallet appear to use a single seed phrase across the blockchain “According to analyst Adam Cochran. “This is most likely why there have been so few direct cases on Ethereum. Is it possible to expose seeds using Solana apps?”

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PeckShield also commented on the supply chain theory, claiming that “the widespread hack on Solana wallets is likely due to the supply chain issue exploited to steal/uncover user private keys behind affected wallets.”

Meanwhile, Solana validator Laine has denied reports that validators have blacklisted or intend to blacklist wallets linked to hackers.

“We haven’t blacklisted anything, and we’re not aware of any plans to do so. Explorers have blacklisted them, resulting in warnings, but this has no effect on transactions “Laine stated.
Notably, the ongoing hack may be nearing its conclusion, as the amount of SOL stolen per minute has decreased dramatically. A Dune dashboard that tracks the amount of SOL stolen per minute shows that less than SOL 1 has been stolen at the time of writing (7:20 UTC). In comparison, the hack began with over SOL 500 and even over SOL 1,000 rifled per minute at one point.

SOL, the ninth coin by market capitalization, is currently trading at USD 38.67, down 4.1 percent in the last 24 hours. At this point, it is up nearly 7% in 7 days and 16% in a month.

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