Binance Recovers 83% of Stolen Funds in Curve Finance DNS Attack

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has helped recover crypto assets worth about $450,000 stolen from Curve Finance users. The funds represent about 83% of the total amount stolen from users. 

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao shared the update on Twitter today, noting that the Curve Finance hacker sent the assets to Binance using different techniques to bypass the exchange’s security. However, the company identified the transactions and froze the assets. 

Binance to Return Funds to Curve Finance Users

According to CZ, Binance will return the recovered $450,000 to the victims. The exchange is currently working with law enforcement to make that happen. 

Binance froze/recovered $450k of the Curve stolen funds, representing 83%+ of the hack. We are working with LE to return the funds to the users. The hacker kept on sending the funds to Binance in different ways, thinking we can’t catch it. 😂#SAFU https://t.co/Ekea9moeAw

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) August 12, 2022

DeFi protocol Curve Finance suffered a front-end attack earlier this week, with the hacker draining more than half a million dollars worth of ether (ETH). On-chain data suggests that the attacker made away with about 363 ETH (about $617,000 at the time). 

According to reports, the attacker targeted the project’s nameserver curve. fi and redirected users to a cloned site. Unsuspected users who connected their wallets to the cloned website had their assets stolen. 

Curve Finance Attack Escapes With $47,000

Shortly after the hijack, the attacker transferred 135 ETH ($230,000) to crypto exchange FixedFloat, perhaps hoping to launder the funds. However, the platform said it was able to freeze 112 ETH ($188,000) from the total it received. 

After failing to launder stolen assets with FixedFloat and Binance, the attacker opted for a crypto mixer. According to on-chain data, the hijacker transferred 27.78 ETH ($47,000) to Tornado Cash, a popular mixer for crypto hackers that the United States recently sanctioned. 

Meanwhile, this is not the first time Binance has helped to recover stolen crypto assets. The exchange usually confiscates stolen funds transferred to its platform. In one such case, the Binance security team recovered $350,000 of stolen funds in a DeFi exit scam.