Hacker Drains $5.6M in Crypto From Data Storage Platform

Yesterday, the crypto community saw an attack on one of Serenity Shield’s Metamask wallets, resulting in the theft of over 7 million SERSH tokens. As a result, the token’s price significantly dropped, and the holders showed concern about the platform’s future.

$5.6M In Crypto Stolen From Hot Wallet

Serenity Shield, a data storage solution platform, fell victim to a hack that compromised one of its Metamask wallets holding liquidity for the SERSH token.

The security-focused platform announced on X (former Twitter) that around 7 million SERSH tokens had been sent to a third-party wallet. The tokens were worth around $5.6 million during the exploit.

Transaction details of the hack. Source: BscScan

This incident led to a massive drop in the token’s price, registering a reduction of over 90% in the hours following the heist. SERSH, trading around the $0.8 price range, quickly fell to $0.0073.

By the end of the day, the price was able to recover above the $0.2 support level for a couple of hours before continuing the fall to the $0.016-$0.017 price range.  According to CoinMarketCap data, this represents a price decline of over 70% in the last 24 hours.

As the team announced, all SERSH trading in centralized exchanges (CEXs) was halted, and holders were asked to stop operating on the PancakeSwap exchange as a precautionary measure.

Next Steps For SERSH

Serenity Shield’s team revealed that the best action to protect the community would be relaunching the SERSH token “through a robust smart contract to safeguard our ecosystem.”

The token replacement will follow a 1:1 basis for holders who purchased the token before the incident. However, the team addressed that transactions made after the snapshot timeframe wouldn’t be eligible for this replacement.

🚨 Security Alert & Serenity Shield’s Response 🚨

Today, a MetaMask wallet related to our project was compromised. Consequently, we’re taking immediate steps to address this and support our community:

✋ Stop Trading on PancakeSwap: As previously communicated, please halt all…

— Serenity Shield (@SerenityShield_) February 27, 2024

Additionally, the token substitution will only apply to purchases in decentralized exchanges (DEXs). As for CEXs, the announcement read as follows:

For transactions made on CEX, we will engage with the respective CEX platforms to determine the replacement process and will communicate updates accordingly.

Recently, a similar incident resulted in the crypto gaming platform PlayDapp deciding to migrate from its PLA token to the new PDA token. PlayDapp suffered a security breach that swiped over $290 million in PLA tokens.

Community Outrage and OKX Hack Link

The Serenity Shield team responded amid the community speculation on whether a malicious, unauthorized third party or an inside job did the hack.

On a telegram update, the team clarified that the project had not been hacked but that one of the hot wallets holding the SERSH tokens was compromised. The response denied that they were suffering from a rug pull.

Connection between the OKX DEX exploiter and Serenity Shield's Exploiter. Source: ZachXBT on Telegram

Additionally, crypto investigator ZachXBT and Serenity Shield’s research unveiled that the addresses involved in the hack were related to the security breach that took place in December 2023 and involved the crypto exchange OKX.

The picture above shows that the stolen funds were initially sent to a third-party wallet. This wallet sent the tokens to two other addresses, transferring them between them. One of these addresses (0x93a8…f554) seemingly received funds that proceeded from the original wallet involved in the OKX hack.

This incident is one of multiple hacks the crypto community has suffered through 2024. Experts suggest that users keep their “eyes peeled and don’t trust any suspicious link or account activity” as scammers continue to target high-profile figures and projects inside the crypto sphere.

Bitcoin price performance in the 4-day chart. Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView.com

Feature Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com