Hackers steal $615M from Axie Infinity sidechain in one of the biggest crypto heists

Ronin, the parent company of Axie Infinity, became a victim of a consequential cryptocurrency heist. On Tuesday, the blockchain project said that hackers stole a total of $615 million from their systems. Analysts claim this to be one of the most historical and largest cryptocurrency heists to date.

A blog post in the Ronin Network wrote, “The attacker used hacked keys to forge fake withdrawals.” Although the network justified having the complete safety tools against cyberattacks, “the attacker found a backdoor.”

Ronin announced that unidentified hackers stole 25.5 million USD Coin tokens and 173,600 ether tokens. If converted to current exchange rates, the stolen amount totals $615 million. However, it is valued at $540 million at the time of the cyberattack.

This Ronin bridge hack is wild! Over $600m in #crypto drained 🤯

As we saw with the Wormhole exploit a few weeks ago, bridges are easy targets…

— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) March 29, 2022

Coindesk’s chief of staff, Pete Pachal, claimed this is “one of the biggest hacks in crypto history.”Coindesk also noted the significant impact drops on the Ronin Network nodes on the popular Axie Infinity game. The hack also affected AXIE DAO and Sky Mavis.

Blockchain network Ronin is the power behind Axie Infinity. The crypto game uses non-fungible tokens (NFTs). According to the NFT market tracker Cryptoslam, Axie Infinity has the most significant volume of NFT collection in sales.

Axie Infinity tops the list regarding the popularity of play-to-earn games. Surprisingly, users continued logging in on Wednesday even after the news broke out. The hackers can target the digital platform’s vulnerability in the bridge.

1/ @Ronin_Network update

Our Ronin Substack has been updated with additional information.

We are in the process of conducting a thorough investigation; working with @Chainalysis to monitor the stolen funds and @Crowdstrike to handle forensics.

— Ronin (@Ronin_Network) March 30, 2022

This bridge is the software mechanism for trading types of crypto tokens. The hackers targeted this to drain funds in two separate transactions.

Ronin’s Course of Actions

Ronin said they discovered the security breach on Tuesday. “We work directly with various government agencies to ensure the criminals get brought to justice.” The network also added they are discussing with Axie Infinity how to assure that users’ assets and funds were not lost.

In a blog post from the Ronin Network, they noted that “they are “working with law enforcement officials, forensic cryptographers, and our investors to make sure all funds are recovered and reimbursed.”

As of this writing, Ronin users cannot deposit and withdraw funds from the network.

Ronin also hasn’t responded to any comment requests on Twitter. They said they were already in talks with a significant blockchain tracker Chain analysis to track the stolen funds. Some findings show that the funds are still in the hacker’s digital wallets.

The crypto platforms aren’t new to these types of hacks. Just last month, the crypto arm of Jump Trading had recovered more than $320 million to crypto platform Wormhole. The hack also followed one of the biggest crypto heists on record.