Seneca Hacker Returns $5.3M, Claims $1M Bounty

Seneca Protocol Vulnerability Exploited: Hacker Returns Stolen Funds

After exploiting a vulnerability in the Seneca protocol, a hacker returned $5.3 million in stolen funds to the project. This marks a significant development in the ongoing saga.

Details of the Incident

• The returned amount represents 80% of the reported $6.4 million stolen funds.
• The hacker accepted a 20% bounty, amounting to $1.28 million, for identifying the vulnerability within the smart contract.
• Blockchain security firm Peckshield reported that the total Seneca funds returned is 1,537 ETH.

Actions Taken

The hacker transferred 20% of the overall loot, amounting to 300 ETH, to two different crypto wallet addresses as per the agreement with the Seneca team. The team is collaborating with third-party security providers and law enforcement to trace the funds and identify recipient wallets.

Seneca’s Response

The Seneca team commended the collaboration with the hacker and described the return of funds as an “optimistic scenario.” They are still gathering information on the exploit and plan to release a post-mortem update soon.

What Happened?

Seneca is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that allows users to stake the native token $SEN to earn yields. PeckShield Inc. discovered a critical approval bug in the Seneca protocol that allowed for the theft of funds from approving users.

Crypto Industry Insights

Crypto losses have been a common occurrence in the industry. In 2023, over 600 major malicious attacks resulted in approximately $2.61 billion in losses, with only a portion of the funds recovered.

Hacks accounted for $1.51 billion in losses, while scams resulted in a loss of $1.1 billion. This marked a 27.78% decrease from the previous year’s losses.