Hackers steal over $4.7M from Uniswap V3 via phishing attack

Hackers stole  over 4295 Ethereum (ETH), worth more than $4.7 million, from decentralized exchange Uniswap via a phishing attack on July 11, between around 14:00 UTC and 23:00 UTC.

Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao noticed the attack and extended a helping hand to stop it. Uniswap.

A security officer first noticed the attack at Metamask around 16:00 UTC. He posted a Tweet notifying Uniswap that the attack had started around two hours ago.

⚠️ As of block 151,223,32, there has been 73,399 address that have been sent a malicious token to target their assets, under the false impression of a $UNI airdrop based on their LP’s

Activity started ~2H ago
0xcf39b7793512f03f2893c16459fd72e65d2ed00c

cc: @Uniswap @etherscan pic.twitter.com/5W51AikFuV

— harry.eth 🦊💙 (whg.eth) (@sniko_) July 11, 2022

Around six hours later, CZ also posted a Tweet notifying Uniswap of the attack. Zhao said that the Binance threat intel noticed the malicious activity, and the hackers had already stolen over 4295 ETH.

Zhao extended a helping hand, asking the community to reach out to Uniswap.

Within half an hour, the attack was stopped. Zhao posted another Tweet sharing a chat screen to notify the community.

Connected with the @uniswap team. The protocol is safe.

The attack looks like from a phishing attack. Both teams responded quickly. All good. Sorry for the alarm.

Learn to protect yourself from phishing. Don’t click on links. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/FIXebz3iBC

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) July 11, 2022

UNI Price

While some community members extended their gratitude to the Binance team, some blamed them for spreading FUD.

Regardless, Uniswap’s token UNI dropped more than 15% during the attack.

As of press time, UNI was trading at $5.551 — 9% lower than the UNI prices before the attack.

Is it FUD?

Despite the bear market, Uniswap has been extending its business. At the beginning of April, it established a Venture Capital to support projects that share similar goals to Uniswap.

A week later, Uniswap hinted that it’s also playing for web3 dominance by announcing the launch of “swap widget” website integration.

Finally, at the end of June 2022, Uniswap proved it has been going strong despite the winter by acquiring Genie to be able to integrate NFTs into its platform.

Based on Uniswap’s strong standing and its token’s slow but continuous increase despite the bear market, speculators claim that the phishing attack was a FUD for prominent names to buy lower.