NEAR Intents ends probe after exploiter returns stolen $3.8M

NEAR Intents’ hacker returned all the stolen $3.8 million, a day after the exploit was made public. While this was commendable, given the rising number of crypto hacks with limited refunds, the recovery was strikingly interesting. 

The hack was isolated to BNB Chain and targeted an integration bug on the Omni system that runs the NEAR Intents, a cross-chain system that allows users to move funds without the need for bridges. 

This allowed the attacker to siphon off $3.8 million on the 1st of October. The team flagged it using its AI security layer (SHIELD) and shut down NEAR Intents for about an hour to investigate it. 

The attacker was swiftly tracked within 24 hours. Shortly after, NEAR Intents General Manager and Co-Founder of Aurora Labs, Alex Shevchenko, gave him 48 hours to return the funds. 

A few hours after the warning, he confirmed that the attacker had reached out and was willing to negotiate. Later on, he said the funds were fully recovered and added, 

The funds from the $3.8M NEAR Intents hack were sent back in full. We are stopping the investigation. Please use bug bounties instead of disrupting the services.

Community reactions to NEAR Intents’ $3.8M recovery

The statement “use bug bounties instead” insinuated that the said “attacker” probably defended their action as security research that they were planning to report to the team. 

In fact, Illia Polosukhin, Founder of Near Protocol, also made a similar suggestion and added, 

To echo Alex: for security researchers looking for exploits, we encourage you to use bug bounties. They exist for a reason.

As of writing, the identity of the “attacker” has not been made public. However, this is one of the fastest exploits that have been resolved recently. In fact, it may be the only one where all stolen funds have been recovered within two days.  

In Q3 alone, crypto hack-related loss surged from $86 million at the end of June to $742 million at the end of September. That’s nearly a 10x increase. 

One of the two largest exploits was Bitget’s $388 million and Liquid Network’s $320 million. For Bitget, slightly over $1 million has been frozen out of the $388 million. The Liquid Network incident stands out and rivals NEAR Intent because attackers returned 85% of the funds ($272 million) within 24 hours. 

Notably, over $1.25 billion has been lost since July, with North Korean threat actors flagged as the biggest players. 

That said, NEAR Intents’ resolution could be bullish for the altcoin, according to analyst Michael van de Poppe. The  $NEAR hacker has returned all of the funds. Done deal, resume the bullishness on NEAR.”

However, NEAR extended its losses to 16% and broke below a key trendline support. If the weakness persists, it could hit the next support zone at $4 or $3.5. 

Final Summary

• NEAR Intents has recovered all the stolen $3.8 million. 
• The recovery has not boosted NEAR value amid broader market weakness.