Following a recovery effort, Binance has reclaimed a fraction of the stolen crypto funds which arose from the notorious Ronin Network attack.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said that the exchange had managed to recover $5.8 million worth of the Axie Infinity loot after a North Korean hacking group attempted to withdraw some of the goods on Binance. He added “Part of it (stolen funds) made to Binance, spread across over 86 accounts. $5.8M has been recovered.
After details of the hack were made public, Binance paused all deposits & withdrawals on the Ronin Network and tasked its security team with tracking any ‘unusual transactions’ occurring on the exchange.
In what became the largest crypto heist in history, hackers compromised the Axie Infinity Ronin Bridge for $625 Million by exploiting validator nodes belonging to Sky Mavis – the gaming company behind Axie Infinity. The Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI) had recently linked the infamous attack to North Korea’sĀ Lazarus Group after a thorough investigation.
Since the heist, several groups have sought to recover the stolen funds including crypto exchanges Binance, Huobi, and FTX. Blockchain security firm SlowMist also aided the recovery process by tracking the hacker’s wallet address and identifying where the stolen goods were being moved.
Hackers Still Hold $286 Million Of Ethereum
Although Binance’s announcement does come with a slight sigh of relief, the majority of the loot remained with the hackers. On 20 April, the hackers moved another 8,164 ETH out of the 173,000 ETH stolen, representing a market value of $86.1 Million.
With an earlier transfer of $60 Million, the total amount of stolen crypto that has been cashed out is currently around $118 Million. Data from Etherscan shows that the attacker’s main wallet still holds 94,821.5 Ether, valued at $286.6 Million. Reportedly, popular Ethereum mixed Tornado Cash was used to hide the digital trail on Ethereum and make it easier to withdraw funds without drawing attention.