Shalini Nagarajan

Crypto startup Ankr says a former employee instigated the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/binance-chain-apps-5m-hack" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$5 million theft</a> from its platform earlier this month.



A malicious hacker exploited a smart contract for one of Ankr’s staking rewards tokens, aBNBc, on Dec. 2. They&#8217;d manipulated a bug in its code that enabled <a href="https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1598508401755144196" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unlimited minting</a> of the token, deployed to Binance-branded BNB Chain.



In a Tuesday <a href="https://www.ankr.com/blog/after-action-report-our-findings-from-abnbc-token-exploit/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog</a>, the decentralized finance protocol said a former team member was behind the attack. It didn’t name or identify the individual. 



“A former team member (who is no longer with Ankr) acted maliciously to conduct a supply chain attack, inserting a malicious code package that was able to compromise our private key once a legitimate update was made,” Ankr said.



Crypto intelligence firm Arkham had already <a href="https://twitter.com/ArkhamIntel/status/1598620203457208320" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">noted</a> the possibility of an inside job after on-chain sleuths linked related transactions to an Ankr deployer.



Ankr added: “Unfortunately, internal bad actors can affect any protocol and we are working on shoring up internal HR processes and safety measures to strengthen our security posture going forward.”&nbsp;



The team is now working with law enforcement to potentially prosecute the former team member.



Previously, Ankr <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ankr-exploit-causes-collateral-damage" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">explained</a> the attacker “minted an excess of aBNBc out of thin air” by uploading a new contract that allowed minting without authorization checks. They proceeded to swap it for other tokens on decentralized exchanges.&nbsp;



Overall, the attacker minted 60 trillion aBNBc across six transactions. They swapped some for USDC before bridging the stablecoins to Ethereum and washing them through crypto mixer Tornado Cash.



<h3>Ankr reimbursed affected users with crypto</h3>



Shortly after the Ankr hack, a second exploit occurred on staking platform Helio, which hadn’t updated Ankr-related token prices despite aBNBc dropping more than 99%, from $303 to $1.54.



This allowed one user to borrow $16 million worth of its native stablecoin HAY by using affected Ankr tokens as collateral. They then swapped those funds for $15 million in BinanceUSD (BUSD), <a href="https://twitter.com/BlockSecTeam/status/1598625878455373824" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a> to blockchain analysis firm BlockSec, before sending the haul onto Binance.



Ankr later executed a recovery plan for the community, which involved compensating its liquidity providers, lenders and other users affected by the exploit.&nbsp;



The team also helped stabilize HAY after the stablecoin depegged, although the token is yet to fully regain its intended dollar value, now trading at a touch over $0.99.



In any case, Ankr hopes multi-sig authentication for updates will ensure similar attacks are avoided moving forward. The team is also implementing background checks for employees and reviewing access rights.



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Ankr Confirms $5M Crypto Hack Was An Inside Job

Macauley Peterson

Decentralized Web3 infrastructure provider Ankr sought to reassure its community Friday with an initial response to the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/binance-chain-apps-5m-hack" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">theft of at least $5.5 million</a> from BNB Chain liquidity pools and money markets.&nbsp;



The team confirmed that Ankr’s other products — including validators, RPC nodes, and AppChain services — were not affected. That will come as a relief to holders of Ankr’s other larger staking derivatives, notably aETHc — Ankr staked ether — which carries a market cap of about $68 million.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Update on our aBNB Token Exploit: We are grateful to our community of DEXs, exchanges, and protocols that all helped us end the exploit quickly. We will use reserves to compensate liquidity providers for the aBNBc pools.<a href="https://t.co/B2yNWBAQdX">https://t.co/B2yNWBAQdX</a>&mdash; Ankr (@ankr) <a href="https://twitter.com/ankr/status/1598768146088742912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 2, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The attacker minted a total of 60 trillion aBNBc across 6 different transactions. The thief then used the minted, but unbacked tokens to drain liquidity from decentralized exchanges on the <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/bnb">BNB Chain</a>. After turning around and buying the depressed aBNBc the attacker was able to raid borrowing and lending protocol Helio by withdrawing $16 million in HAY, the protocol’s custom stablecoin and swapping it for $15.5 million <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/busd">BUSD</a>, the Binance stablecoin issued by Paxos.



Prior to the exploit, Helio had $90 million in Total Value Locked, <a href="https://defillama.com/protocol/helio-protocol" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to DeFiLlama</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">1/ The team at Helio Protocol is aware of the situation and we are closely working with <a href="https://twitter.com/ankr?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Ankr</a> to manage the situation and to support our community during this difficult time.&mdash; Helio Protocol ($HAY) 🔶 (@Helio_Money) <a href="https://twitter.com/Helio_Money/status/1598710451285598208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 2, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“Hacks and exploits from bad actors like this are an unfortunate possibility in Web3, even with every attention to detail in security processes — but we were well prepared,” Co-Founder &amp; CEO Chandler Song, said in <a href="https://www.ankr.com/blog/the-abnbc-token-report/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a statement</a>.



A recommended “action plan” explained how users of aBNBc can be compensated through a new ankrBNB token that will be minted and airdropped based on a pre-exploit snapshot of on-chain data.



While the attack apparently stems from malicious use of the private key for the aBNBc smart contract deployer, it&#8217;s unclear exactly how the key was compromised. Industry <a href="https://blog.openzeppelin.com/protect-your-users-with-smart-contract-timelocks/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">best practices call for</a> multisignature wallets and timelocks on upgradeable smart contracts, to prevent this type of attack.



Representatives from Ankr did not respond to Blockworks request for comment.



Other providers of liquid staked BNB such as pSTAKE <a href="https://twitter.com/pSTAKE_stkBNB/status/1598540733044359168" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">use multisigs</a> to protect sensitive contracts, and restrict access to token minting functions, while fully decentralized dapps such as Uniswap on Ethereum are not upgradeable at all.



The full extent of the collateral damage is not yet clear, but the Ankr team <a href="https://twitter.com/ankr/status/1598803911443468289" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">expressed the intent</a> to resolve losses incurred by customers of related DeFi dapps.



For example, Ankr will cover bad debt incurred by Helio Protocol, pending the outcome of ongoing discussions, <a href="https://twitter.com/Helio_Money/status/1598710457711198208" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to</a> the latter’s official Twitter account.



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Ankr Exploit Causes Collateral Damage

Bessie Liu

Ankr, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol on the BNB chain, has been hit with a $5 million exploit.



The hack occurred earlier Friday morning after the attacker took advantage of an <a href="https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1598508401755144196" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unlimited mint bug</a> in the aBNBc token smart contract, a bug that the attacker reportedly engineered.



A total of 10 trillion aBNBc was minted and later swapped by the attacker for 4,050,500 USDC and 5,000 BNB tokens. All USDC was then moved from the Binance Smart Chain onto Ethereum and funneled through <a href="https://blockworks.co/crypto-mixers-and-privacy-coins-can-they-resist-censorship/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">crypto mixer Tornado Cash</a>.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Ankr got hacked! 1.🧵 A short thread about what Ankr Exploiter did.&mdash; Lookonchain (@lookonchain) <a href="https://twitter.com/lookonchain/status/1598520872716804101?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 2, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said his exchange would be freezing withdrawals related to the recent hack.



&#8220;Initial analysis is developer private key was hacked, and the hacker updated the smart contract to a more malicious one,&#8221; Zhao <a href="https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1598575867311132673?cxt=HHwWgsC82YOSpK8sAAAA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>. &#8220;Binance paused withdrawals a few hours ago. Also froze about $3m that hackers move to our CEX.&#8221;



Liquidity pools of aBNBc on PancakeSwap and ApeSwap have almost been completely drained by the hack, and as a result, the price of aBNBc has dipped by <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ankr-reward-bearing-stake-bnb" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">99.5%</a> over the past 24 hours — the price of Ankr’s native cryptocurrency, ANKR, has also been affected, dropping by <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ankr-network" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2.5%</a> in the past day.



Ankr’s team is actively looking at resolving its smart contract issues and will be reimbursing users affected by the hack.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">The team at Ankr has assessed the damage and it is max 5M USD worth of BNB from the liquidity pools. We are currently working hard to resolve this issue efficiently and we would like to propose the following to address the current situation:&mdash; Ankr (@ankr) <a href="https://twitter.com/ankr/status/1598624443642703872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 2, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“Ankr will purchase 5m worth of BNB and use this to compensate in totality the liquidity providers that have been affected by the exploit due to the drainage of the liquidity pool,” the company <a href="https://twitter.com/ankr/status/1598624447203770369" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>.&nbsp;



Adding, “the ankrBNB token will continue to be redeemable, while aBNBc and aBNBb will no longer be redeemable.”



The Ankr team <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ankr-exploit-causes-collateral-damage" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">put out a damage assessment</a> Friday afternoon ET, detailing the next steps for holders of the affected tokens.



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Hackers Stole More Than $5M From 2 Binance Chain Apps

Jack Kubinec

<div id="highlights-block_62bf46e463b31" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The companies assert no funds were stolen, though they cannot tell for sure</li>
 <li>The hack comes as Polygon announced a partnership with Meta to bring NFTs to Facebook</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



A hacker produced a phishing pop-up on Polygon and Fantom this morning warning users their funds were at risk and urging them to enter their private account keys.&nbsp;



The hacker accessed Polygon and Fantom’s remote procedure call (RPC) interfaces through the Web3 infrastructure platform Ankr by tricking a third party domain name system (DNS) provider into giving the hacker access to Polygon and Fantom’s domains.



Ankr’s DNS is hosted on a web service named Gandi, and its customer support has a section for clients who want to change the administrator’s email for a domain.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/1o_R5kAc11QEYSiJNBjnVw8H47zLNZwxe6yLZgnvQBcc_s_X2ZYYZjkAM5UrsuYD_Nt0IPLrT2iV6cjO2-aJby895yT0tzUKO1XZvn5sGPZTw7vuFb3LlHIB5_maJPr40CCpRLZONbepryvVA5c" alt="" width="492" height="160"/><figcaption>Customer service communication at Gandi | Source: Ankr</figcaption></figure></div>


Posing as an Ankr employee, the hacker sent Gandi a fake identity card and convinced the platform’s customer support service to change the email address for the domain registrar account from Ankr’s to the hacker’s Hotmail account.



Ankr is “still trying to understand what [Gandi] accepted as proof for this change,” Peter Stewart, integration manager at Ankr, said.



Ankr was able to regain control of the DNS within six hours of the attack. Sources at Polygon and Ankr told Blockworks that no user funds were compromised, but also conceded they cannot conclusively determine whether any users fell victim to the phishing attack.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Attention please, attack on <a href="https://twitter.com/0xPolygon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@0xPolygon</a> is ongoing right now! Users see an RPC error asking users to urgently reset their seed on polygonapp net (looks like this is wether DNS hijack or a form of a supply chain attack). Just a scam popup to bring you to a page to put your seed. <a href="https://t.co/fZxtlkKeDN">pic.twitter.com/fZxtlkKeDN</a>&mdash; CIA Officer (@officer_cia) <a href="https://twitter.com/officer_cia/status/1542829400143568897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“DNS is unfortunately still a centralized point of failure in the internet,” Ankr co-founder Ryan Fang told Blockworks via Telegram.&nbsp;



Fang said Ankr will continue to work with Gandi, but it will ask its DNS providers to use two-factor authentication moving forward.



The phishing attack comes as Polygon announced a partnership with Meta to bring NFTs to Facebook — and as NFT (non-fungible token) sales reach their lowest point in a year, according to the blockchain research platform Dune.



“It was a third party outage that does not affect Polygon in any way. Meta is not using that third party either,” <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mudit4/?originalSubdomain=in" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Mudit Gupta</a>, chief information security officer at Polygon, told Blockworks.



Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



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Hacker Posed as Ankr Employee To Phish Polygon and Fantom Users

<div id="highlights-block_6245df33eb370" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Infrastructure for developers and Web3 applications today are often too centralized, leading to common failures, experts say</li>
 <li>Ankr plans to move part of its operations into a DAO over time</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Web3 infrastructure provider Ankr is disrupting itself. What the team describes as a “shift from platform to protocol” is aimed at placing community-run nodes at the center of its strategy.&nbsp;



That’s a stark contrast to the model pursued by rivals like <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=infura" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Infura</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=alchemy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alchemy</a> and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=Blockdaemon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockdaemon</a>, according to Josh Neuroth, Ankr’s head of product. Institutions that want to get into the node business — to earn staking rewards for participating in blockchain security and transaction validating — don’t necessarily care much about the principles of decentralization.



But the idea of turning users into owners is integral to the Web3 ethos, and it forms a key part of Neuroth’s answer to the question, “What does mass adoption look like?”



“The analogy I like to use is, this is its own digital economy, and layer-1s are like the town square in the middle of the city,” Neuroth told Blockworks.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“Projects and protocols like Ankr are building all the infrastructure — we’re building the power, the pipes, the water, even the roads that connect all these things together and that enable the economic growth.”</blockquote>



Infrastructure for developers and Web3 applications today remains a relatively centralized point of failure. Much like when Amazon Web Services suffers an outage that impacts your Netflix and Spotify experience, when Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider Infura <a href="https://status.infura.io/history?page=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">goes down</a>, it can significantly impact blockchain performance or the ability to use the popular wallet software Metamask.



“Infrastructure companies in Web2 became the most powerful in the world because, at scale, they are unstoppable,” Neuroth said. “Without this move, we end up in the same space as Web2.”



“It’s a constantly evolving move towards decentralization,” added Greg Gopman, Ankr’s chief marketing and business development officer. “Ankr will not provide the only nodes; there will be a decentralized group of node providers, including other infrastructure companies in the space, providing nodes in this network.”



Gopman said that Alchemy is looking to be acquired by Microsoft. The Ankr team’s plan entails moving parts of the operation into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) over time.



Ankr provides staking node infrastructure for multiple blockchains, including the Ethereum <a href="https://ethereum.org/en/upgrades/beacon-chain/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Beacon Chain</a>, which is slated to merge with the Ethereum mainnet this summer. It was the first to offer a version of liquid staked ether, but at $168 million in total value locked (TVL), it’s a distant fifth to market-leader Lido’s $10 billion, according to <a href="https://defillama.com/protocols/liquid%20staking/Ethereum" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DeFi Llama</a>.



More recently, Ankr has helped Binance upgrade its BNB Chain, which includes a subnet-like concept dubbed BAS — for BNB Application Sidechains — part of Binance’s efforts to decentralize the BNB chain, according to Neuroth.



“This is being seen as a new phase of scaling in the space,” he said. “We’ve realized that across the space, the path of scaling is going to be these subnets.”



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Ankr Doubles Down on Decentralization of Web3 Infrastructure

Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_61684ec776c8e" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Team’s collaboration with decentralized infrastructure provider Ankr will include education initiatives around advancements in the crypto space</li>
 <li>The Kings launched its MiningForGood program in 2019 to help offer scholarships for Sacramento-based causes</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The Sacramento Kings organization is partnering with software platform and decentralized infrastructure provider Ankr in an effort to continue supporting the growth of the blockchain industry.



Through the partnership, the Kings and Ankr will produce educational content, host events and create innovative projects that showcase ways to support



Ankr, which launched in 2018, provides infrastructure, APIs and tooling for developers to build and scale decentralized applications or marketplaces for decentralized finance (DeFi), NFTs and any other Web3 implementations.



As of 2021, Ankr’s protocol supports more than 50 proof-of-stake chains through its network. It offers staking solutions that aim to eliminate barriers to entry for users of Ethereum 2.0, Polkadot, Polygon and Avalanche.



“Sports can be a powerful platform to educate and embrace innovation,” Sacramento Kings Owner Vivek Ranadivé said in a statement. “We are proud to partner with Ankr to further align our synergies around forward-thinking initiatives and provide fans educational opportunities about the crypto economy.”



In collaboration with Ankr, the Kings will be creating an annual event at Golden 1 Center where it will invite students, developers and fans to learn about the advancements in the crypto space, according to John Rinehart, the team’s president of business operations. There will be the potential to award scholarships for students that are interested in careers in the technology field, he added.



“Using the most technologically advanced arena as a backdrop, it is a perfect setting to discuss what the future holds,” Rinehart told Blockworks. “Ankr will partner on our <a href="https://www.nba.com/kings/news/kings-first-sports-team-mine-cryptocurrency-establish-multi-year-scholarship-fund" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MiningForGood program</a> to allocate mining proceeds to help train and steward a new workforce for the blockchain industry.”



Ankr CEO Chandler Song said in an email that the company was inspired by how the team’s owner has infused his passion for technology to the team. “Sacramento Kings already have an integrated blockchain strategy, running nodes and mining crypto as part of their commitment to the ecosystem,” Song told Blockworks. “There are many ways we will be able to support their future initiatives as they continue to immerse themselves in this space.”



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-14-Chandler-Song-1024x682.jpeg" alt="Chandler Song" class="wp-image-9390" width="840" height="559" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-14-Chandler-Song-1024x682.jpeg?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-14-Chandler-Song-1024x682.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-14-Chandler-Song-1024x682.jpeg?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-14-Chandler-Song-1024x682.jpeg?w=386 386w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-14-Chandler-Song-1024x682.jpeg?w=392 392w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-14-Chandler-Song-1024x682.jpeg?w=329 329w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-14-Chandler-Song-1024x682.jpeg?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-14-Chandler-Song-1024x682.jpeg?w=1201 1201w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /><figcaption><meta charset="utf-8">Chandler Song; Source: <a href="https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/chandler-song" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Everipedia</a> (uncredited)</figcaption></figure>



In addition to the MiningForGood initiative, created to support a multi-year scholarship program, the Kings have launched a string of blockchain-related initiatives in recent years.&nbsp;



The team announced the <a href="https://www.nba.com/kings/news/sacramento-kings-and-blockparty-launch-nbas-first-blockchain-driven-token-power-predictive" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NBA’s first blockchain-powered reward program</a> with Blockparty in 2019 and also collaborated with CryptoKaiju that year <a href="https://www.nba.com/kings/blog/sacramento-kings-partner-cryptokaiju-launch-first-physical-crypto-collectible-professional">to launch</a> the first physical crypto-collectible in professional sports. 



In 2020, the Kings launched the league’s first live blockchain-powered <a href="https://www.nba.com/kings/blog/sacramento-kings-launch-leagues-first-live-blockchain-powered-auction-platform-authentic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">auction platform</a> with Consensys and Treum in 2020. ConsenSys, an Ethereum software company, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/consensys-acquires-treums-team-nft-platform/">announced</a> earlier this week its acquisition of Treum’s team and NFT platform to advance its offerings in the growing sector.



Most recently, the Kings created <a href="https://www.nba.com/kings/news/kings-launch-industry-first-combination-digital-real-world-nft-commemorate-inaugural-season" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a collection of 85 NFTs</a> depicting the 1985 commemorative pin given out during the team’s inaugural season in Sacramento.