Good day everyone,
I hope you are all well and had an excellent week, welcome to CryptoGod-1’s blog on all things crypto. Today I will be writing about the recent hack that happened on Tornado Cash, and how the community now have control of the platform once again. However, prior to handing back control, the hacker did something very interesting while making use of the site.
Tornado Cash Hack
Tornado Cash is famed for the fact it is associated with its ability to help 'clean money' via its crypto mixing facilities. It's almost untraceable anonymous crypto transactions mean it is the go to option for many money launderers in the crypto space, with much backlash from governments and regulators in regards to the facilities it provides. Apparently North Korea hackers are among the multitude of cyber criminals to move their ill gotten funds through the mixer, and reports state over $7 billion in digital assets have been laundered since its creation in 2019.
On the 21sst of May 2023 the site suffered from a hack. This came about when a hacker exploited a vulnerability in the Tornado Cash governance, something which is meant to be under the community's control. Apparently the hacker managed to take control of the site when they were looting 483,000 of the protocol’s native TORN coins. They achieved this by sharing a malicious governance proposal, which users voted on. This allowed the hacker to gain control of the protocol, and enact their robbery by withdrawing the tokens through the governance contract.
The hacker proceeded to swap a large amount of the TORN coins for about 472 ETH, which is worth about $900,000. They then made use of the protocol to launder the digital tokens. Thanks to the power of the crypto mixer, it will be next to impossible to know exactly where they sent the 472 ETH, meaning the hacker was clever enough to not only hacker the service, but also make use of it as part of their escape. The TORN token crashed once the hack occurred, with its value sinking from over $7 to less than $4, but it has since climbed back to about $4.50
In a change of events, the hacker relinquished control of Tornado Cash once they were finished with their robbery. Control has been handed back to the team, who will now be working on ensuring no similar attack can happen on the platform. Security is paramount in all crypto spaces, and ensuring the users have confidence in the platform is key to its success. Users will still be happy to make use of Tornado Cash for its crypto mixing servies, but they will note that the ease at which the hack happened has not inspired confidence in the site.
The irony of it all? Tornado Cash was created to mix crypto, and in many ways became the go to destination for cybercriminals and facilitating money laundering. Now the site has been hacked, and the criminal utilized the very same service to launder the funds stolen during the attack.
Have a great day.
Peace. CryptoGod-1.
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** I first posted this story on Medium on the 31st of May 2023, which can be read here: https://medium.com/@1r3n9project/tornado-cash-hacker-hands-back-control-74bb1d766ff2?sk=0f43f0283da209b6631c02a7dd687361 **
