New reports are indicating that the Solana blockchain ecosystem, the fifth largest blockchain on Earth by total value locked (TVL), has been the victim of an attack by an unknown malicious actor.
The attack is apparently still ongoing and over 8000 “hot” crypto wallets have been compromised so far amounting to at least $5-million worth of stolen SOL, SPL, and other Solana-based crypto tokens, according to CoinDesk.
some exploit either with @phantom or @MagicEden, drained 6mil in like 10 mins literally every phantom wallet getting compromised, not sure if any other wallets too pic.twitter.com/dVtksoMeye
— Paladin (@nftpeasant) August 2, 2022
Currently, the cause of the attack remains unclear. Some reports indicate that several engineers from other ecosystems have found that an exploit on the Phantom or Magic Eden platforms allowed a malicious actor to drain funds from thousands of digital wallets on the blockchain, affecting both mobile and extension wallets.
Engineers are currently working with security researchers and ecosystem teams to identify the root cause of the exploit, which is currently unknown. There is also no evidence that hardware wallets have been impacted by the attack.
Engineers from multiple ecosystems, with the help of several security firms, are investigating drained wallets on Solana. There is no evidence hardware wallets are impacted.
This thread will be updated as new information becomes available.
— Solana Status (@SolanaStatus) August 3, 2022
@SolanaStatus, a Twitter account that monitors the status of the ecosystem suggests to users who have had their funds drained from wallets to treat their respective wallets as compromised and abandon them.
“We are evaluating the incident impacting Solana wallets and are working closely with other teams in the ecosystem to get to the bottom of this. We will issue an update once we gather more information,” said a representative of Phantom, the largest Solana hot wallet, in a statement to CoinDesk.
The representative added that the Phantom team doesn’t believe this is a Phantom-specific issue at this time. Meanwhile, hundreds of Twitter users have been scrambling to react to the news that their wallets may have been compromised.
Solana’s native token, SOL, has dropped 4% since the news of the attack broke but has settled back to $39.57. There is still no information on the actor responsible for the ongoing attack.
By Luis Monzon
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