Bibit Refill Reserve after a record-breaking $1.5 billion hack

Bybit said it replenished its reserves following a $1.5 billion hack last week.

Within 72 hours, Bibit stitched together hundreds of thousands of ether tokens through a mix of emergency loans and large deposits. A quick recovery restored the exchange’s balance and kept customer withdrawals open, but did not take into account the stolen code.

The violation was that Bibit had moved funds from offline “cold wallets” to offline “cold wallets” designed for safe and long-term storage to “warm wallets” that allow for active transactions. It happened sometimes. During that transfer, the hacker exploited the security gap, intercepted the transaction and redirected the funds to an unknown address.

Bibit CEO Ben Zhou wrote in a post on social media site X on Sunday that the exchange will remain a solvent, adding that client assets are still fully supported and withdrawals remain open. Ta.

The company has secured approximately 447,000 ether tokens through emergency funding from companies such as Galaxy Digital, Falconx and WinterMute. With certification of a reserve audit conducted by cybersecurity firm Hacken, BYBit confirmed that it had successfully restored its reserves and confirmed that it includes all major assets. Bitcoin, etherSolana, Tether, and USDC – exceeded 100% collateral.

Recovering stolen assets remains a challenge.

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic has identified North Korean Lazarus group as the perpetrator of the attack. The stolen funds were initially spread across 50 different wallets, each holding about 10,000 etheric tokens as part of their efforts to wash the coins.

As of February 24th, more than $195 million or about 14.5% of the stolen assets had already been transferred.

Bybit offers a 10% prize money for the return of stolen funds, but history suggests there is a small probability of recovery.

The Lazarus Group has a track record of laundry encryption to avoid international sanctions, and is reportedly using stolen assets to fund North Korea’s nuclear program. In 2022, the group stole $600 million from Axie Infinity, recovering only $30 million despite law enforcement intervention.

Ether, the token at the heart of this attack, fell by about 5% in the past days.