FTX hack : “the attacker made a stupid mistake” according to Hacken

Following its bankruptcy, FTX lost hundreds of millions of dollars. According to several experts, the attacker was an amateur and used his own Kraken account.

On Friday, a few hours after the announcement of its bankruptcy, FTX lost $600 million in cryptocurrencies. The exchange’s new CEO later announced that “unauthorized access” had occurred.

In particular, one entity misappropriated $400 million. Seemingly panicking, the latter has already lost a large portion of the tokens, reports blockchain analysis startup Arkham Intelligence.

‘They’ve been hastily trying to do whatever they can with the funds, apparently without much of a plan,’ commented Miguel Morel, director of Arkham Intelligence.

According to Arkham, the attacker currently holds $215 million in ETH, $48 million in DAI, $41 million in BNB on BSC, $20 million in frozen PAXG, $7 million in DAI on BSC, $4 million in USDT on Avalanche and $3.8 million in MATIC.

The thief is said to be acting as an amateur and used his own Kraken account to conduct transactions. Kraken’s CSO, Nick Percoco, recently confirmed that he knew the identity of the user in question. Kraken is now working with the authorities.

For Dyma Budorin, co-founder of Hacken, the thief made “a stupid mistake” by using his own Kraken account. The theft also demonstrates that FTX was “very poor” at managing its cold wallets, he said. Note, however, that the attacker may have used a fake KYC to steer investigators in the wrong direction.

“The unsophisticated maneuvers imply that there is a hope of recovering the funds. I think it’s only a matter of time before he is identified,” Morel concluded.

It also remains to be seen whether this is an inside job or a real hack.