NEAR Intents Reports $3.8 Million Theft

NEAR Intents suspended its operations on October 1 following a security breach that resulted in losses of approximately $3.8 million. The incident was triggered by a bug in the interaction between the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure and NEAR Intents' smart contract.

The NEAR Intents team stated, "Earlier today NEAR Intents services were stopped after a security incident was detected." The initial assessment indicated substantial financial losses due to the breach.

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT revealed that the assailant executed withdrawals from the platform's hot wallet located on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). The stolen assets were moved to the KuCoin exchange and converted into Bitcoin.

The NEAR Intents team has addressed the issue and restored the protocol and website functionality. However, users will be unable to make deposits and withdrawals across several networks, including BSC and Polygon, for an additional period of about 12 hours while the team finalizes enhancements.

Officials from NEAR Intents have committed to reimbursing those affected by the theft and have contacted law enforcement. They are also collaborating with security experts and blockchain analytics to recover the stolen funds, with a comprehensive report expected soon.

This breach follows a recent incident on September 24, where Bitget reported unauthorized transactions from various hot wallets, valuing around $351.6 million in impacted assets.