Last Updated on December 2, 2022 by Bitfinsider

Ankr, a Web3 infrastructure platform, was the target of a significant vulnerability earlier today, and it’s been alleged that the hacker made millions of dollars off the platform. Early information indicates that the hacker has generated 10 trillion Ankr Reward Bearing Staked BNB (aBNBc).

On the Ankr protocol, there is a reward-bearing token for BNB called aBNBc. Additionally, information from BSCScan reveals that the Ankr hack sent 900 BNB coins to Tornado Cash.

Earlier, the BNB chain had used Ankr to introduce the liquid staking feature. By assigning BNB tokens to the liquid staking agreement and acquiring aBNBc, users were able to earn interest. The price of aBNBc has fallen by a startling 99.5% since the exploit.

The exploit could have been caused by a flaw in the smart contract or a breach of the private keys. Colin Wu, a cryptocurrency journalist, reports using data from DeBank: “0x8d… took advantage of the Ankr loophole, used 10 BNB to exchange 183,384.92 aBNBc, and then converted to hBNB and staked it into Helio Protocol to lend more than $16m BHAY0 and exchanged it into HAY0. The stablecoin HAY once fell to $0.2.”

The Exploit is Confirmed by Ankr

The Web3 infrastructure platform Ankr recently confirmed to the attack in a tweet.

This year has seen a deluge of significant cryptocurrency abuses, costing investors billions of dollars. The industry for decentralized finance (DeFi) has seen a lot of these abuses.

Back in October, a cross-bridge assault involving BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) and BNB Chain resulted in the theft of Binance Coins worth $100 million (BEP20 or BSC). Decentralized finance (DeFi) system Mango Markets, situated in Solana, California, suffered an attack in the same month and lost $100 million from its DeFi protocol.