According to Oasis -the vendor of the multi-signature software the hacker used to deposit money- a previously unreported weakness in the design of the admin multisig access was only discovered. Once the High Court of England and Wales passed a ruling on February 21, Oasis took advantage of that frailty to reclaim the funds.
Following a British court’s decision, the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform Oasis announced on Friday that it had seized money tied to the $140 million Wormhole bridge fraud from the previous year and sent it to an “authorized third party.”
Oasis has Seized the Money Successfully
Oasis stated, “We emphasize that this access was there with the sole goal to safeguard user assets in the case of any prospective attack and would have allowed us to swiftly patch any vulnerability identified to us.”
Oasis asserts that they have returned the funds to “an authorized third party.” In a Blockworks investigation published before Oasis’ blog post, Jump Crypto, the company that created Wormhole, was named as the owner of the wallets that received the confiscated property. Jump Crypto took some time to reply.
Jump Crypto is now at Ease, it Seems
Several of the biggest thefts in the cryptocurrency sector have included cross-chain bridge hacks, such as the Ronin attack that cost $540 million and was eventually linked to the North Korean Lazarus state hacking squad. Yet, permissionless blockchains are proving to be excellent tools for those battling financial crime since they are transparent and accessible to everyone.
In the next few days, there may be discussion over the morality and even legality of exploiting the exploiter. Nonetheless, it appears like Jump Crypto is currently $140 million better financially than it was the previous week.
You might check: Exploring TrueFi: The Innovative Decentralized Lending Platform