A hacker exploited Hyperbridge's smart contract, minting 1 billion DOT tokens and selling them for $237,000, while another musician lost funds to a fake app.
On April 13, a hacker successfully exploited a vulnerability in the Hyperbridge cross-chain bridge's smart contract, allowing them to issue 1 billion Polkadot (DOT) tokens. This incident was detailed by cybersecurity experts at CertiK.
CertiK Alert reported that the attacker manipulated the Polkadot token contract on Ethereum by sending a forged message, resulting in the minting and subsequent sale of the new tokens for approximately $237,000, or 108.2 ETH.
The hack specifically targeted the ERC-20 version of DOT on Ethereum, leaving the main Polkadot network unaffected. Following the news, DOT's price fell by 4%, bringing it down to $1.19.
As of now, the Hyperbridge project team has not released any comments regarding the breach.
Musician Victim of Fake Ledger App
In a separate incident, musician Garrett Dutton, known as G. Love, reported losing 5.9 BTC, valued at around $420,000, after downloading a fraudulent Ledger app from the Apple Store while setting up his new computer.
He expressed his heartbreak on social media, revealing that he lost all his retirement savings after entering his seed phrase into the malicious app.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT traced the stolen funds, which were laundered through multiple transactions involving deposit addresses on KuCoin. Neither Ledger nor Apple has responded to inquiries about this incident.
Interestingly, this is not the first time scammers have targeted crypto wallet users; last April, similar scams were reported involving physical letters aimed at hardware wallet owners.
