Cork Protocol Hit by $10M Hack, Probe Underway

Cork Protocol, an emerging asset-pegged platform supported by giant venture platforms like Orange DAO and 16z CSX, has recently experienced a stunning hack. As per the blockchain security platform SlowMist, Cork Protocol has incurred a more than $10M in the hack. This hack has shaken the entire crypto market as the magnitude is huge. The prominent blockchain security company took to social media to share insights into this incident.

Cork Protocol Loses $10M in Smart Contract Exploit

SlowMist flagged a suspicious activity on Cork Protocol, indicating a significant compromise on the platform. The on-chain data points out that the attacker potentially deployed a malicious contract on the 28th of May at 11:23:19 UTC. Hence, the malicious actor exploited the smart contract by illegitimately transacting nearly 3,760 wrapped staked Ether (wstETH) from the Cork Protocol. This figure denotes a value of approximately $10M.

Investigation carried out by SloMist suggests that the attacker seems to have exploited a vulnerability, enabling the drainage of such a huge amount. Particularly, the wallet address “0x9Af…..9bb09” obtained the exploited amount following the attack. Subsequently, the stolen funds were burned via the Ethereum burn address in diverse repeated transfers. With this, the likely purpose was to obfuscate the trail of the exploited assets.

However, within a few hours, the unauthorized transaction was flagged, with SlowMist being the earliest to detect the malicious activity. The other platforms disclosing this exploit include Phalcon, CertiK, and others. The drained wstETH tokens were then transacted to the address 0xEA6…..4da98. Since the detection of the incident, security entities have been looking into this matter.

Security Team Investigates Exploit for Potential Recovery

After the exploit, Cork Protocol also shared a statement on its official X account regarding this. It asserted that the security team of the platform is investigating the matter. It also assured the community that the community will soon get the further updates regarding the exploit and likely recovery. However, the Cork Protocol exploit has sent shockwaves across the crypto community. The event has also raised questions about the security concerns in the DeFi sector.