Another massive cryptocurrency heist has just been carried out by digital burglars. According to a reliable source, hackers stole 173,600 Ethereum (about $591.2 million) from the Ronin blockchain, which runs Axie Infinity, a famous “play to earn” game in which users may earn cryptocurrency in return for playing and paying some initial charges. The attackers allegedly used a backdoor in an Axie designer Sky Mavis’ Remote Procedure Call node to obtain a signature, allowing them to “forge fake withdrawals” with compromised private keys.
Sky traced the fault to a carryover from the previous season. In November, the company requested assistance from the Axie DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) to manage free transactions and deal with an “immense user load”. Sky was able to sign transactions on the DAO’s behalf until December, but access was not withdrawn after that.
The company has responded by ‘pausing’ the Ronin bridge to cut any potential attack paths, as well as temporarily deactivating the Katana decentralized exchange. It aimed to mitigate short-term harm by raising the validation threshold, but it also stated that it was in the middle of a node move that would keep the old system in place. Sky plans to use Chainalysis to hunt down the stolen Ethereum and is in contact with security specialists at “major” cryptocurrency exchanges.
Sky’s previous concerns have been heightened by the theft. According to the source, Axie Infinity has suffered from falling prices for its NFTs and tokens in recent months, forcing revisions to keep the game viable. An instance like this may potentially complicate the situation by depriving the game of much-needed revenue while also weakening players’ trust.
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