In a surprising turn of events, a DeFi hacker has returned the money they stole. On April 21, the dForce hacker returned the $25 million worth of ETH that they stole from the Lendf.me protocol.
The refund reportedly happened in two parts: on April 20, sources say that the hacker returned $2.79 million. The following day (April 21), the hacker returned the remaining amount of money that they stole.
Why did the hacker return the stolen funds??
It’s safe to say nobody saw this one coming—thieves don’t usually return stolen merchandise. But it looks like the Lendf.me hacker did have a bit of incentive to return the stolen money. Apparently, the Singapore police had the attackers’ IP address, which means that law enforcement was not very far removed from finding out who the attacker was.
According to Mindao Yang, the founder of dForce, the company that created the Lendf.me protocol, the hackers tried to get in contact with the dForce team shortly after they stole the funds from Lendf.me.
“The hacker(s) have attempted to contact us, and we intend to enter into discussions with them,” according to the dForce blog.
A string of unprecedented events that will change DeFi forever
Given the recent Lendf.me exploit, as well as the string of other DeFi protocol and decentralized exchange hacks that have happened within the last few weeks, it is more than likely that DeFi platforms will be restructuring their protocols—especially when it comes to the security aspects of DeFi systems. In the most recent dForce blog post, Mindao Yang gives an update on the current status of Lendf.me and efforts being made to recover from the exploit.
“The current Lendf.Me smarts contract will remain disabled and will be permanently deprecated… Moving forward, we will introduce a rigorous, audited integration process when introducing assets into the dForce ecosystem,” Yang said.
The good news is that dForce will be making any of its users who had their funds stolen during the exploit whole again. In other words, they will be making sure that users who had their funds stolen are refunded. However, this is yet another attack on a DeFi system, and it is likely to change the DeFi landscape forever.
As of late, DeFi platforms and exchanges have been easy prey for hackers. Attackers have been exploiting vulnerabilities in these systems and making off with tens of thousands, if not millions of dollars’ worth of digital currency. The hacks that have taken place will reshape DeFi, hopefully, making those systems more secure and less risky for all users who wish to use them.
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