- Bybit suffers a $1.4 billion Ethereum theft in a major cyberattack.
- Hackers compromised a cold wallet and transferred funds to a warm wallet.
- The breach is now the largest crypto heist in history.
Crypto exchange Bybit disclosed on Friday that it had fallen victim to a highly sophisticated cyberattack, resulting in the theft of Ethereum (ETH) worth approximately $1.4 billion from one of its offline wallets.
The breach, now considered the largest cryptocurrency heist in history, has sent shockwaves across the digital asset industry.
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In a livestream announcement, Bybit CEO and co-founder Ben Zhou revealed that hackers managed to steal around 401,346 ETH. He later explained on X that the attacker had gained control of one of Bybit’s cold wallets—a supposedly secure, offline storage system for cryptocurrency.
The stolen funds were then moved to a “warm” wallet, which has internet connectivity, allowing the hacker to execute the transfer.
Bybit further elaborated on X that it had detected unauthorised activity involving one of its ETH cold wallets, triggering an internal investigation into the breach.
“The incident occurred when our ETH multisig cold wallet executed a transfer to our warm wallet. Unfortunately, this transaction was manipulated through a sophisticated attack that masked the signing interface, displaying the correct address while altering the underlying smart contract logic.
“As a result, the attacker was able to gain control of the affected ETH cold wallet and transfer its holdings to an unidentified address.
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“Our security team, alongside leading blockchain forensic experts and partners, is actively investigating the incident. Any teams with expertise in blockchain analytics and fund recovery who can assist in tracing these assets are welcome to collaborate with us,” the company explained.
This incident surpasses previous major crypto breaches, including the $624 million Ronin Network hack and the $611 million Poly Network exploit, according to data from Rekt, a platform tracking Web3 and crypto-related breaches.
