The Ronin protocol which acts as the second transaction layer during the time of the covid pandemic of the very popular play to earn game Axie Infinity suffered a theft during which more than $ million worth of cryptocurrencies disappeared What was also remarkable about the did not notice anything for five days and the problem was only brought to their attention by a user who failed to withdraw the deposited funds .
ETH from the networkAn attacker discovered a vulnerability that allowed them to get hold of the private keys of Indonesia WhatsApp Number Data Ronins network validators Thanks to them he unlocked access to roughly ethers and $2 million in stablecoin USDC He subsequently transferred the funds away in two separate transactions This achieved two records it was the largest hack in the history of decentralized finance up to that time and at the same time it was one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in history.
The attacker gained control of the keys by first taking control of four nodes belonging directly to Sky Mavis and then seizing the fifth through a third party in the form of Axie DAO In a network that consisted of only nine validators he thus obtained a critical majority whose keys were enough to confirm any deposit or withdrawal of cryptocurrencies The reason why the network was sufficient to sign a relatively small number of validators is that in the early days of the network some nodes could not keep up and got stuck in a state of synchronization.
