UwU Lend offers a $5M bounty in ETH for locating the hacker behind recent exploits, following failed negotiations to recover $23.7M in stolen funds.
- UwU Lend sets $5M bounty for hacker after $23.7M stolen via flash loan attacks.
- Failed negotiation leads UwU Lend to offer bounty, no recovery of funds required.
- Persistent security flaws exposed after two major exploits on UwU Lend platform.
UwU Lend has put up a $5 million bounty in ETH for anyone who can apprehend the hacker behind the recent heists.
Yesterday UwU Lend was the target of an exploit involving a sophisticated attack. The team reacted swiftly and the protocol was paused within minutes. Rates for borrows and deposits have been set to 0% so users’ positions will not be affected by this pause.
— UwU Lend (@UwU_Lend) June 11, 2024
This move comes after the efforts to get the hacker to release the stolen funds proved futile.
UwU Lend Offers $5M to Catch Hacker
UwU Lend, a decentralized lending protocol, is offering a $5 million bounty in Ethereum for ‘the first person to identify and locate’ the hacker who has been carrying out attacks lately.
In the announcement made through Input Data Message (IDM) on Ethereum, there is no demand for the recovery of funds or facing the criminal charges.
This bounty comes after unsuccessful talks with the hacker where UwU Lend proposed to give the hacker 20% of the stolen funds if the rest 80% would be returned.
The hacker did not follow the offer that was made to him/her, and therefore UwU Lend had to step up its actions.
On Monday, the exploiter utilized a flash loan attack to hack UwU Lend, and the platform lost $20 million. Another raid occurred on Thursday, resulting in the loss of another $3.7 million.
According to blockchain security experts, the same person is behind both attacks.
Previous Offers and Deadlines
UwU Lend at first tried to settle the dispute without involving the police by offering the exploiter a deal. If the hacker decided to return 80% of the stolen amount, he would be allowed to retain the 20% and be let off the hook.
This offer was extended with a deadline of Wednesday, 1 p.m. ET (17:As at 00:00 UTC, which was the agreed time to shut down the system, the hacker did not do so.
By Thursday, UwU Lend informed that the repayment period had been over and, therefore, the protocol had to think about other options which resulted in the creation of the $5 million bounty.
Repeated Exploits and Security Concerns
The first incident on June 10 was a flash loan attack that manipulated price oracles of sUSD stablecoin which left the platform to lose $20 million.
After this, UwU Lend came out and said that the problem has been noted and fixed. However, another attack on June 13 resulting in a loss of $3.7 million, showed that the security issues had not been fully addressed.
Both of these attacks have caused concerns in the DeFi industry on the effectiveness of security measures that have been put into place in decentralized platforms.
Due to its connection with Michael Patryn, also known as Omar Dhanani and 0xSifu, co-founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, UwU Lend has attracted criticism.
This background has compounded the problem of rebuilding user trust in the wake of the exploits.
The experts advise the application to utilise better real-time tracking and stronger security measures to reduce the risk to the users’ valuables.
However, in light of the recent breaches, UwU Lend has ensured its clients that their funds are secure and that all the losses incurred will be recovered at the earliest.
The company has also thanked security firms such as Hypernative Labs for their timely notifications that allowed the company to act quickly to minimize the effects of the exploits.
UwU Lend has also ceased and is slowly bringing back its markets, and working on getting back to normalcy.
