Solana hack Explained: What really happened to Solana on August 3 2022? What was the exploit? Get your facts right.
Rumors from the Solana Hack Explained
A recent Twitter page shared information that the Solana hack was a result of neglect by the Slope team. According to the page, the slope team shared plaintext seed phrases with external integration partners.
Therefore, the compromise on phantom wallets was a result of seed phrase imports using the slope wallet. Further compromise on Ethereum wallets was a result of reused seed phrases.
Therefore, this is not a blockchain or randomness issue just like Phantom said. Phantom admitted that the hack has nothing to do with it's network or security, however, it was looking into the matter. The issue is also not a Solana Blockchain issue but a negligence issue.
Actual Happenings of the Solana Hack Explained
The information above is false and simply allegations towards the slope team. No dev team is that negligent. Here is the correct information from Solana Official Docs.
The Slope wallet did not send seed phrases to external partners, but may have logged them on their own centralized servers.
How did the Solana Hack/Exploit Occur?
1. Negligence.
2. DDOS attack on Solana nodes.
3. Draining of Funds.
Solana Hack Explained
Yesterday, 3 August 2022, many Solana users woke up to $SOL and $USDC funds drained from wallets. This shocked many considering that Web 3 is supposed to be secure. The network lost close to $5M through popular Solana wallets like Slope and Phantom. Only users using cold wallets were not affected.
The attack had four key wallets involved. Blockchain trackers have identified the four accounts draining and moving funds around in the network. So far, affected accounts are 15,200; this is according to general news. However, according to Solana's Official Twitter page, "Sol Status", 8000 wallets were affected.
The problem is not with the Blockchain but with the software common with Solana wallet users. The exploit is also not a result of any lingering permissions users might have granted to smart contract and other platforms as initially believed because even after revoking the permissions, the drain continued.
Therefore, this could only be a compromise of users' private keys. Solana Labs CEO and co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko thought the issue affected only iOS users, but he corrected the tweet later on saying that even Android users were affected.
The affected wallets have had the keys imported or generated on mobile. Solana Labs CEO further went on to blame Apple and Google for providing users with signing and recovery of devices, which are not secure. One top crypto investor, Adam Crochan blamed the issue on importing key phrases with Slope.
What is Next for the Affected Solana Hack Users?
Ottesc, a Blockchain cybersecurity firm and Paradigm engineers have been sharing a type form for affected users.
The team is also performing denial of service attacks on the Solana nodes to interfere with the hacker activities.
Stay safe on the Web! I will be sharing a second article explaining the exploit step by step. For now, we are waiting for the full information. Leave a comment below if you have heard anything tangible.
Comments