The Euler Fianance protocol was attacked almost a week ago, causing a loss of more than $180 million. And although the attackers behind the scheme are not yet known, the popular on-chain analyst Lookonchain recently reported data that shows who may be behind the hack.
According to data from Lookonchain, the Euler Finance Hacker sent 100 Ether (ETH) to the wallet address linked to the Ronin bridge network exploit earlier which took place last year. The Ronin Network is the building block for the popular crypto game Axie Infinity.
After the network bridge was exploited last year for an estimated $625 million, recording the second largest attack on the emerging crypto market, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) was able to trace the address of the exploiter and list it as a hack from the North. Korean Notorious Hacking Group Lazarus.
Related reading: DeFi Hack: Euler Finance Pushes to Return Funds After Blocking Vulnerable Modules
Now, a year later, the same Ronin bridge exploit address appears to have received 100 ETH from Euler Finance Hacker. Does this mean the Lazarus group is also behind the Euler Finance attack?
Lazarus Group What Not?
The connection between the two addresses intersecting with each other has baffled the crypto community and also triggered speculation that the Lazarus group is developing targets in the cryptocurrency space as well as methods of laundering and transferring funds.
According to a report from the blockchain analytics company Peckshield, on March 16, Euler Finance exploited flash loans. transferred part of the stolen funds – a total of 1,000 ETH tokens worth almost $1.65 million, through an intermediary address to the famous crypto mixer, Tornado Cash.
In particular, it is still uncertain whether the Lazarus group is behind the Euler Finance protocol hack because the transfer of 100 ETH could be a false flag, a decoy, or a random occurrence that does not indicate a deliberate conspiracy relationship between the addresses.
However, since Ethereum transaction senders split the funds into smaller amounts using smart contracts to provide different wallets that include Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol exploit addresses, Mango Markets, suggests that these all transfers could be a decoy to lure legal forces are far from the real attackers.
Run Down On Euler Finance Hack
It was last week when the attack on the Euler protocol takes place and chain security company Certik Alert initially reported the incident on Twitter, announcing that bad actors had stolen 41 million DAI and counting. It’s more to remind users to be alert because the exploit is still being done at the time of the tweet.
A few hours later, Certik posted an update that hackers stole $195 million from Euler Finance. The assets include 96,800 ETH and 43.6 million DAI stablecoins, so the biggest exploit to date in 2023.
In response, the Euler Finance team has ensure users are working to stop the exploit. The company said it has brought law enforcement and security professionals into the matter and will update the community soon.
Meanwhile, Euler Finance’s original token EUL is still suffering from investor panic selling from the hack. Over the past 7 days, EUL has fallen by more than 70%, and is still falling, dropping 5% in the last 24 hours despite the bullish trend of the global crypto market.
Featured images from Unsplash, Charts from TradingView