Tornado Cash: Individual transfers 10M Dollars from 2023 phishing event to Tornado Cash

Crypto News– An account associated with a phishing attack in September 2023 has transferred $10 million worth of Ether (ETH), priced at $3,429, to the crypto-mixing protocol Tornado Cash. On March 21, blockchain security firm CertiK identified an account related to the $24 million hack, moving 3,700 ETH to Tornado Cash. These funds were obtained from a crypto whale during a phishing incident on Sept. 6, 2023.

Tornado Cash: Individual transfers 10M Dollars from 2023 phishing event to Tornado Cash

During the initial attack, the investor lost $24 million in staked ETH through the liquid staking provider Rocket Pool. The hacker executed two transactions: one extracting 9,579 stETH and another draining 4,851 rETH from the crypto whale. According to Scam Sniffer, the victim authorized an “Increase Allowance” transaction, granting token approvals to the hacker, enabling third-party spending of ERC-20 tokens with approval.

The token allowance feature has raised concerns in the crypto community, with warnings about potential scams involving malicious smart contracts.

PeckShield, a blockchain security firm, noted that the attacker exchanged the assets for 13,785 ETH and 1.64 million Dai (DAI), valued at $1.00. Some of the DAI was sent to the FixedFload exchange, while the majority of stolen funds were transferred to other wallets.

Phishing attacks continue to pose significant challenges for the crypto industry. According to Scam Sniffer’s crypto phishing report for February, nearly $47 million was lost to crypto phishing scams. The report highlighted that 78% of thefts occurred on the Ethereum network, with ERC-20 tokens accounting for 86% of stolen assets.