BNB Chain decentralised finance protocol Ankr has become the latest to suffer a multi-million dollar attack. Early Friday, Ankr protocol confirmed on Twitter that its aBNBc token, a reward-bearing token for BNB staked on the platform, has been compromised by hackers, but assets on Ankr Staking and infrastructure services were not affected.

Ankr Hacker Reportedly Minted Quadrillions of aBNBc

Ankr Protocol has yet to provide a clear narrative on the attack and the losses incurred. However, multiple sources reveal that the hacker unauthorizedly minted a significant amount of aBNBc tokens from Ankr Protocol — up to six quadrillions, according to data from Nansen.

After that, the hacker proceeded to swap and bridge some of the tokens to Ethereum with any liquidity there is on several platforms, including Celer bridge, debridge, BSC’s Tornado Cash implementation, and 1inch.

Following the incident, aBNBc price has dropped by 99% to $1.52 on Coinmarketcap, at press time.

Binance Freezes $3 Million of The Stolen Assets

Peckshield reveals that the hacker moved some of the stolen cryptocurrencies to Binance. At least $15.5 million in BUSD and USDC (Binance-Peg) was transferred to the crypto exchange, hours after the exploit. However, Binance has frozen a portion of the funds, according to the CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ).

CZ said that Binance froze about $3 million the Ankr hacker sent to their platform. Also, the exchange has currently suspended withdrawals.

Some of the stolen funds bridged to Ethereum have also been moved to Tornado Cash, an Ethereum mixing protocol, according to Peckshield.

The total loss is estimated to be north of $15 million, however, Ankr Protocol said in the tweets that it’s committed to compensating affected users.

(By Ibiam Wayas)