Tornado Cash becomes the laundering platform of choice for Kronos Research hacker
After half a year, those behind the $25 million Kronos Research hack have begun transferring the stolen funds. PeckShield, a blockchain security firm, detected the movement on May 7th and reported that the hackers were sending the funds to the mixing platform known as Tornado Cash. Tornado Cash is an open-source platform designed to mix cryptocurrency funds from various sources, making it challenging to trace the origin of the assets. Although some argue that it enhances user privacy, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on its use in August 2022 due to its association with money laundering. Despite the sanctions, bad actors have continued to use the platform, laundering over $500 million worth of crypto in 2023 alone. Furthermore, the creators of the platform have faced allegations of laundering stolen crypto assets, although they have denied these claims and are attempting to have them dismissed.
The Kronos Research hacker initially transferred 1,314 Ether to a new address starting with the code 0x8F5e4. At the time of the transfer, the stash was valued at around $4 million. The funds were subsequently moved to another wallet identified by the code 0x164A24b. This wallet was then used to carry out ten transactions, with each transaction involving 100 ETH, and the funds were sent to the crypto-mixing platform.
Kronos Research first disclosed the exploit on November 18th. The attack was later confirmed by on-chain investigator ZachXBT, who noticed significant outflows of Ether from a linked wallet. It was later discovered that the hackers had utilized stolen API keys to execute the attack. The Taiwan-based firm also attempted to negotiate with the hacker a few days after the attack occurred, offering a 10% bounty on the condition that the remaining 90% of the funds be returned, but their efforts were unsuccessful.
In the first few months of 2024, there have already been several attacks in the cryptocurrency space. However, recent reports indicate a decline in this trend, with a 67% drop in crypto thefts in April compared to March. Similarly, March 2024 recorded a 50% decrease in crypto losses due to hacks compared to February.
Read more: South Korea to tighten control over cryptocurrency mixers.
