Orbit Chain Starts The Year With An $82 Million Hack. They Say It Was North Korea

✍️ 2 January, 2024 - 11:49 👤 Editor: Jakub Motyka

• Orbit Bridge, part of the Orbit Chain protocol, has been hacked resulting in a loss of $82 million.
• The hackers, of North Korean origin, are suspected of transferring cryptocurrency funds to new wallets, affecting several major currencies.
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Orbit Bridge, the Orbit Chain protocol service, has been the victim of a hacker attack that has resulted in a loss of 82 million dollars.

The attack was first detected by X (formerly Twitter) user Kgjr, who pointed out a series of big departures from the Orbit Chain Bridge protocol. Hackers have taken a total of $81.68 million in illicit funds.

Looks like orbit bridge is getting drained right now, different fresh wallets for wbtc usdt usdc and dai, test tx's showup on orbit bridge scanner but bigger ones doesnt. Wallets bellow pic.twitter.com/zlUbT0HrO2

— Kgjr (clueless333) (@KGJRTG) December 31, 2023

The hacker attack on Orbit Chain takes away 82 million dollars

The transactions in the Orbit Bridge hacker attack have involved 30 million dollars in Tether (USDT), 10 million dollars in USD Coin (USDC), 21.7 million dollars in Ethereum (ETH), 9.8 million dollars in Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and $10 million in Dai (DAI), all transferred to new wallets​.

Taylor Monahan, Product Manager at Metamask, has dropped that responsibility for the attack would lie with North Korean hackers. He assures that this is a new attack that will put billions of dollars "on a silver platter" to hackers in that country.

Orbit Chain, launched in South Korea in 2018, is a multi-asset blockchain that primarily focuses on transfers between different decentralized networks, and is typically used to transfer assets between compatible networks. Ethereum Virtual Machineand Klaytn.

It is understood that Orbit Chain has strong ties to the Klaytn network, a modular layer 1 blockchain. According to data from the Klaytn block explorer, eight of the largest assets on the Klaytn network by market capitalization are assets wrapped in Orbit Bridge​​​​.

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