Was Gaming Giant Axie Infinity Hacked?

Jeff “Jihoz” Zirlin, co-founder of Axie Infinity, faced a shocking hack attack with a $9.7 million loss in his 3,248 ETH wallet. Zirlin’s personal crypto wallets were seized by a hacker and about $9.7 million worth of Ether was stolen. This amount was later transferred to Tornado Cash.

A blockchain researcher named PeckShield announced that a significant breach occurred on the Ronin Bridge on February 23rd. The hacker seized 3,248 ETH.

Aleksander Larsen, co-founder of Ronin Network, stated that his bridge has high security measures, but it led to suspicion of the wallet being hacked.

Larsen also stated that the Ronin network is constantly audited and withdrawals will be stopped when any abnormal situation is detected. Zirlin also soon confirmed that two of his personal wallets were also attacked. However, he emphasized that the attack did not stem from security flaws in the Ronin chain or Sky Mavis operations and added the following:

“I want to assure everyone that we have taken strict security measures for all chain activities.”

Speaking to Cointelegraph, PeckShield pointed out that the underlying cause of the attack was a “wallet breach” that allowed unauthorized fund transfers.

While no exact information about the details of the attack has been given, the message conveyed by Zirlin claims that the private keys of two wallets have been leaked and this situation has allowed unauthorized access to personal crypto wallets. This could have occurred as a result of unauthorized access caused by a security vulnerability in the wallets.

PeckShield’s research revealed details about the wallets captured from Ronin Bridge v2. According to this report, it is stated that the loot of 3,248 ETH was initially divided into three different wallets and these funds were later transferred to Tornado Cash for anonymization by hackers.

On the other hand, on February 1st, Binance froze $4.2 million worth of stolen XRP. This event emerged as part of the $112 million hacking made to Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen’s personal wallet on January 31. This situation shows that theft and security breaches on cryptocurrencies are an ongoing problem in the industry.

Unlike the hacker of Axie Infinity Jihoz, Larsen’s hacker did not use crypto mixing services or decentralized exchanges to hide his identity. In this case, a centralized exchange like Binance was able to detect and block some of the stolen funds. This incident once again emphasizes the importance of the security and traceability of crypto assets and shows that users need to be careful.

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