Echo Protocol's eBTC exploited for $77M in admin key compromise

The report "Echo Protocol's eBTC exploited for $77M in admin key compromise" describes a concrete shift in digital assets and crypto payments. The hacker has already laundered nearly 5% of the loot through Tornado Cash and is still holding the remaining 955 eBTC. Decentralized finance protocol Echo Protocol was exploited after an attacker minted about 1,000 unauthorized eBTC on the protocol, which is deployed on the Monad blockchain. Blockchain security firm PeckShield and analytics platform Lookonchain both reported the incident on Tuesday, noting that a hacker minted 1,000 synthetic Bitcoin (eBTC) worth around $76.7 million. “We are currently investigating a security incident impacting the Echo bridge on Monad. All cross-chain transactions remain suspended while the investigation is underway,” Echo Protocol said on Tuesday. This latest exploit comes in a month that has seen at least 12 protocols compromised, including THORChain, Verus Protocol’s Ethereum bridge, Transit Finance, TrustedVolumes and Ekubo. According to PeckShield, the attacker attempted to launder some of the loot by depositing 45 eBTC worth around $3.45 million into DeFi lending and liquidity management protocol Curvance. The attacker then borrowed 11.3 wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) worth $868,000 against it, bridged the tokens to Ethereum, swapped them for ETH, and sent 384 ETH worth about $822,000 to the Tornado Cash mixing service.

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