Ongoing Solana Hack Hits 8,000 Wallets, Draining $5.2 Million So Far

Approximately 8,000 digital wallets have been hit by hackers to the tune of $5.2 million in digital currency – including solana’s SOL token and USD Coin (USDC), according to CNBC, citing blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. The hack was confirmed by Solana Status via Twitter.

“Engineers from across several ecosystems, in conjunction with audit and security firms, continue to investigate the root cause of an incident that resulted in approximately 8,000 wallets being drained,” tweeted the account, which added “This does not appear to be a bug with Solana core code, but in software used by several software wallets popular among users of the network.“

This does not appear to be a bug with Solana core code, but in software used by several software wallets popular among users of the network.

Updates will be posted to https://t.co/ivyoIbdCDP as they become available. 2/2

— Solana Status (@SolanaStatus) August 3, 2022

Starting Tuesday evening, multiple users began reporting that assets held in “hot” wallets — that is, internet-connected addresses, including Phantom, Slope and Trust Wallet — had been emptied of funds.

Phantom said on Twitter that it’s investigating the “reported vulnerability in the solana ecosystem” and doesn’t believe it’s a Phantom-specific issue. Blockchain audit firm OtterSec tweeted that the hack has affected multiple wallets “across a wide variety of platforms.” -CNBC

🚨 Widespread Solana private key compromise 🚨

– attacker is stealing both native tokens (SOL) and SPL tokens (USDC)
– affecting wallets that have been inactive for >6 months
– both Phantom & Slope wallets reportedly drained pic.twitter.com/AkZXOGLD0Q

— foobar (@0xfoobar) August 3, 2022

Earlier, Elliptics’s co-founder Tom Robin said “It appears to be due to a flaw in certain wallet software, rather than in the Solana blockchain itself.”

looking for folks who were effected by the attack, but only received sol or tokens into the wallet and never transacted more than once, never reused their mnemonic key anywhere else.

— SMS T◎ly, 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) August 3, 2022

SOL fell as much as 7.3% to $38.40 in early trading on Wednesday, only to recover much of the loss, while Bitcoin was up 1.5% to $23,367.

The Solana network has been encouraging users to stick with hardware wallets, which don’t appear to have been affected.

“Do not reuse your seed phrase on a hardware wallet – create a new seed phrase. Wallets drained should be treated as compromised, and abandoned,” reads one tweet, referring to a collection of random words generated when one first sets up their crypto wallet, and can be used to recover it.

The Solana network had been viewed as a promising newcomer to the crypto market – with the likes of Chamath Palihapitiya and Andreessen Horowitz touting it as an alternative to ethereum with faster transaction speeds and enhanced security.