Is your crypto at risk? Avalanche, Polygon, and ZkSync Discords hacked!

• Recent crypto breaches hit Polygon, Avalanche, and ZkSync Discord servers, causing financial losses.
• Token values declined, emphasizing the need for user vigilance despite security measures.

The past weekend delivered a significant blow to the crypto community, as major networks faced a series of coordinated attacks.

Within just 48 hours of a breach in Polygon’s [MATIC] Discord channel, the official Discord servers of Layer-1 network Avalanche and Layer-2 blockchain ZKsync were also targeted in separate exploits.

Avalanche’s Discord compromised

On 25th August, Avalanche’s [AVAX] official X account announced that its Discord server had been compromised, warning users to avoid interacting with any links.

Screenshots shared by Avalanche Discord members revealed that the attackers had posted fraudulent links, promoting fake “distribution” schemes for Avalanche tokens and falsely promising free AVAX to holders and community members.

Source: Stog Chog/X

Approximately an hour later, Avalanche’s community lead, Ben Well, confirmed that the team had identified and resolved the issue, and efforts were underway to restore the server to its normal operations.

Source: Ben Well/X

This incident had a noticeable impact on Avalanche’s native token, AVAX, which dipped to $26.22 after enjoying a period of positive trading.

However, recent data shows AVAX has since recovered slightly, trading at $27, though it still experienced a modest 0.07% decline in the last 24 hours. 

ZkSync’s Discord fell into the same prey

As the crypto community was still processing the news of Avalanche’s breach, reports emerged that the official Discord server of ZkSync had also been compromised just an hour later.

Hackers posted deceptive links promoting a fake “round 2 airdrop” scheme, falsely promising users free ZK tokens.

Source: HammerToesKnows/X

While ZkSync has yet to officially address the exploit on X, several team members acknowledged the breach within the Discord server. 

What happened to Polygon’s Discord channel?

For those unfamiliar, on 24th August, Mudit Gupta, Polygon’s Chief Information Security Officer, confirmed the incident and warned users to refrain from interacting with any links shared in the compromised channel until the issue is fully resolved.

Source: Mudit Gupta/X

As a victim of the attack, a user named ValidatorK reported a significant loss of $150,000 in Ether after engaging with what seemed to be an official announcement on Polygon’s Discord channel.

The breach also affected MATIC, which saw a decline as a result. In fact, as of the latest update, MATIC was still down by over 5% in the past 24 hours, trading at $0.5224.