BlockThreat - Week 2, 2025
Moby | Orange Finance | Unilend | IPC | Mosca | Alienbase | FortuneWheel | WTO
Greetings!
We’re kicking off the second week of 2025 with nearly a dozen exploits that have collectively netted attackers around $2.7M. Low-TVL, unaudited projects on BSC continue to fall victim to hacks, often losing $10K at a time. However, it’s the two private key compromises that deserve additional discussion—and even a bit of celebration.
On January 8, Moby Trade protocol on Arbitrum suffered a significant breach when an attacker used stolen private keys to upgrade several vaults. Just as the attacker was preparing to drain $2.5M, Tony Ke from SEAL 911 intervened. Exploiting a vulnerability in the attacker’s own unprotected contract, Ke managed to recover nearly $1.5M. While the attacker still escaped with $1M and any funds collected via user approvals, this incident highlights the growing importance of proactive incident response. Whitehats and their bots are increasingly playing a crucial role in mitigating the impact of exploits.
Orange Finance faced a similar attack on the same day. Despite having its upgrade admin account protected by a multisig, a misconfiguration allowed a single compromised key to perform an unauthorized upgrade. The fact that two Arbitrum-based projects were compromised on the same day using the same vector raises questions: coincidence or a coordinated effort?
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This week brings an intriguing collection of research articles, including a Cosmos engineer’s simulation of an alleged exploit linked to the Terra downfall, insights into 0-day vulnerabilities in a popular wallet and a hashing algorithm implementation, and a wealth of audit tips from some of the industry’s top security researchers.
On the phishing front, scammers and wallet security apps are locked in a cat-and-mouse game to outwit transaction simulation mechanisms. One such successful bypass led to a $460K theft from an unfortunate user who didn’t receive adequate warnings.
In other news, the U.S. government arrested operators of Sinbad and Blender, multiple DeFi security companies announced acquisitions, more regulators departed their posts, and the relentless wave of drainers continues to plague the ecosystem.
Let’s dive into the news!
News
- Whitehat hacker rescues $1.5M from first DeFi hack of 2025.
- The federal government just got the greenlight to sell $6.5 billion in Bitcoin seized from Silk Road.
- Chainalysis Buys Israeli Fraud Detection Startup Alterya for $150M.
- Fuzzland has been acquired by Solayer Labs.
- Analysis of the 2024 Blockchain Security and Anti-Money Laundering Annual Report: Security Landscape, Phishing and Scam Techniques, DPRK & Money Laundering Tools, and AML Trends & Data by SlowMist.
- 2024 Web3 Security Report by PeckShield.
- Telegram snitched on 2,000 users to US authorities in 2024, report.
- CoinSwitch launches $70M recovery fund for WazirX hack victims.
- Breaking Rugs: The state of Web3 Security Report.
Crime
- Russian nationals arrested by US, accused of running crypto mixers Blender and Sinbad.
- New York Attorney General wants to serve crypto thieves via NFT after $2.2m heist.
- Crimeware-as-a-service: A new threat to crypto users.
- Russia to Sell $10M in Bitcoin Seized in Hack Case.
- Thai police seize nearly 1,000 Bitcoin miners in raid.
- UK To Seize $4.3M In Bitcoin From Fugitive Crime Boss.
- Dutch police arrest law student behind multi-million euro crypto scheme.
- Judge pushes Mango Markets exploiter sentencing to April 10.
Policy
- US regulator plans to toughen customer protection on crypto accounts.
- Gemini agrees to a $5M penalty as part of proposed CFTC order.
- U.S. Enforcement Chief Behind CFTC Crypto Cases Exits Before Trump Arrives.
Phishing
- DPRK's Willo Impersonation Campaign by Zero Shadow.
- New Web3 attack exploits transaction simulations to steal crypto.
- String of X hijacks continues as hackers access accounts of Litecoin, Foresight Ventures, and others.
- Fake CrowdStrike job offer emails target devs with crypto miners.
- Text scammers blasting out bogus job offers stole $2.2M in crypto, NY AG says: 'Never-ending nightmare'.
- ‘Money we don’t have to spare’: Spoofed website causes Toronto man to lose $100K.
Scams
- Bad math homework by Rekt. A dive into Solv protocol double and sometimes triple counting BTC deposits in its TVL calculations.
- Squid Game Season 2: A Window Into Popular Culture and Crypto Scams by TRM.
- Bitten by bitcoin scam: Victim talks about experience as law enforcement faces rash of crypto fraud.
Malware
- Russian-Speaking Attackers Target Ethereum Devs with Fake Hardhat npm Packages.
- CrowdStrike Warns of Phishing Scam Targeting Job Seekers with XMRig Cryptominer.
- PHP Servers Vulnerability Exploited To Inject PacketCrypt Cryptocurrency Miner.
Research
- Blockchain Engineer Alleges Attack Triggered Terra’s $50 Billion Downfall. The reveal includes a video demonstrating an attack on the Cosmos hub with the same effect that caused UST depeg.
- Poseidon Hash Collision vulnerability in iden3's implementation by Marius Van Der Wijden.
- BitsLab’s ScaleBit flags 'alarming' Uniswap Wallet vulnerability.
- Signature Replay Attacks by Joran Honig.
- Top findings in GameFi protocols by gkrastenov.
- Unusual Money by Rekt. A deep dive into the USD0++ depeg.
- MEV resources by The Daily Ape.
- When Should Selfish Miners Double-Spend?.
- Leader Rotation Is Not Enough: Scrutinizing Leadership Democracy of Chained BFT Consensus.
- Knowledge Migration Framework for Smart Contract Vulnerability Detection.
- Leveraging Large Language Models and Machine Learning for Smart Contract Vulnerability Detection.
- SoK: A Review of Cross-Chain Bridge Hacks in 2023.
- Scam Detection for Ethereum Smart Contracts: Leveraging Graph Representation Learning for Secure Blockchain.
- Privacy-Preserving Smart Contracts for Permissioned Blockchains: A zk-SNARK-Based Recipe Part-1.
Tools
- EVM Trackooor: Tracking Anything and Everything on EVM Chains by Zellic.
- Node Snapshots by Allnodes. A large collection of blockchain node snapshots to quickly sync your nodes to a variety of EVM chains.
- Similar Contracts Search by Etherscan.
Hacks
Mosca
Date: January 06, 2025
Attack Vector: Reward Manipulation
Impact: $19,000
Chain: BSC
References:
https://x.com/0xNickLFranklin/status/1876884383736430821
https://nickfranklin.site/2025/01/08/mosca-hacked/
https://x.com/SlowMist_Team/status/1876156823637770441
https://x.com/TenArmorAlert/status/1876142779564277971
https://blog.solidityscan.com/mosca-hack-analysis-85485d0e6bb2
https://nickfranklin.site/2025/01/08/mosca-hacked/
Orange Finance
Date: January 07, 2025
Attack Vector: Stolen Private Keys
Impact: $830,000
Chain: Arbitrum
References:
https://x.com/0xOrangeFinance/status/1876863611458801890
https://x.com/0xOrangeFinance/status/1877008796293468274
https://x.com/TenArmorAlert/status/1877236394999034015
https://rekt.news/orange-finance-rekt/
IPC
Date: January 07, 2025
Attack Vector: Price Oracle Manipulation
Impact: $590,000
Chain: BSC
References:
https://x.com/TenArmorAlert/status/1876663900663370056
https://x.com/CertiKAlert/status/1876838123281223997
HORS
Date: January 08, 2025
Attack Vector:
Impact: $10,300
Chain: BSC
References:
https://x.com/TenArmorAlert/status/1877032470098428058
WTO
Date: January 08, 2025
Attack Vector: Price Oracle Manipulation
Impact: $24,200
Chain: BSC
References:
https://x.com/TenArmorAlert/status/1877030261067571234
Moby
Date: January 08, 2025
Attack Vector: Stolen Private Keys
Impact: $1,000,000
Chain: Arbitrum
References:
https://x.com/shoucccc/status/1877036766776967459
https://x.com/BeosinAlert/status/1877180521710596452
https://x.com/Moby_trade/status/1877096336140677458
https://x.com/Moby_trade/status/1877157836230373823
https://x.com/TenArmorAlert/status/1877329787078979940
https://rekt.news/mobytrade-rekt/
https://revoke.cash/exploits/moby?chainId=42161
https://medium.com/moby-trade/moby-post-mortem-report-growth-plan-504ad5b0dd35
Whitehat Hack:
https://x.com/tonykebot/status/1877240684266295373
LPMine
Date: January 08, 2025
Attack Vector: Reward Manipulation
Impact: $24,000
Chain: BSC
References:
https://x.com/TenArmorAlert/status/1877030261067571234
AlienBase, BunniHub, Timeless
Date: January 09, 2025
Attack Vector: Insufficient Function Access Control
Impact: $38,000
Chain: Base
References:
https://x.com/TenArmorAlert/status/1877583399050739869
https://x.com/SlowMist_Team/status/1877545774856417400
https://x.com/Phalcon_xyz/status/1877559609776640019
https://x.com/CertiKAlert/status/1877562720205287675
https://x.com/TikkalaResearch/status/1877769482191675554
FortuneWheel
Date: January 10, 2025
Attack Vector: Price Oracle Manipulation
Impact: $21,600
Chain: BSC
References:
https://x.com/TenArmorAlert/status/1877654447540592952
https://x.com/TikkalaResearch/status/1877776767907463222
Unilend
Date: January 12, 2025
Attack Vector: Incorrect Reward Calculation
Impact: $200,000
Chain: Ethereum
References: