Euler’s crypto token value fell drastically (by almost half) after the news of the cyber attack. Blockchain monitoring firm PeckShield appeared to be the first to notice the issue.
But then, “We are aware and our team is currently working with security professionals and law enforcement. We will release further information as soon as we have it,” was Euler Finance’s responding tweeted to PeckShield asking them to take a look at the suspicious transactions.
PeckShield tweeted that Euler Finance was exploited in a flurry of transactions on Ethereum, “leading to the loss of $197 million from the project.”
Numen Cyber Labs suspects Euler was the victim of a flash loan attack. In this type of attack, the threat actor takes a large amount of uncollateralized cryptocurrency loans, and then uses these funds to manipulate the prices of certain assets on the platform.
A flaw in one of Euler’s smart contracts was exploited to steal the assets, as per security experts. According to this Elliptic report, the funds used to perpetrate the attack originated from a Monero wallet. The proceeds of the attack are apparently already being laundered through Tornado Cash, a service used to hide blockchain transaction trails.
Yet, $197 million is not that huge of a figure considering that cryptocurrency hackers stole a whopping $3.8 billion last year, making it the worst recorded year for crypto investors, up from $3.3 billion in 2021.