#qcx
> he lost roughly $28m on external exchanges
> $115m of the company’s revenue was conjured by Cotten
> $2m was pocketed by Cotten for his own luxury expenses
> $46m has been seized in court proceedings
> $23-24 million is unaccounted decrypt.co/32080/quadriga…
“The misconduct uncovered in relation to Quadriga is limited to Quadriga,” said the Ontario regulator, “and should not be understood as applying to the crypto asset platform industry as a whole.”
At some point prior to July 2024 the actual hackers landed a backdoor onto something that gave them some access to the WazirX multisig signers and/or their signatures.
We don't know what or who was compromised and it doesn't really matter.
Initial toehold was likely gained by tricking someone at WazirX or Liminal into installing malware -> escalated from there.
This access allowed the hackers to intercept/insert invisible, malicious payloads for signing in a way where none of the 3+ signers were able to notice.
With the recent sophisticated hacks fresh on everyone's mind, there's been a lot of talk about ✨fancy stacks and setups.✨
Yes, you should evaluate how—and with what—you sign txns.
But building a custom UI for your LAN Qubes OS AWS KMS everyday is not really the answer 😅
Background on the referenced hacks (feel free to skip):
1. Funds were stolen from each org's multisig.
2. Keys themselves were not compromised.
3. In Radiant and WazirX and maybe DMM, the keys backing the multisig were actually only on hardware wallets + actually controlled by distinct parties.
DMM Bitcoin - $305m in May
The least amt is known about DMM, including whether keys were cold vs hot. Early theories said address poisoning. It def wasn't that. Attached is rampant speculation (likely all wrong)
See also: x.com/mononautical/s…
Also, note, any organization that can implement / enforce EDR, etc. should do so. Full stop. End of conversation.
However, the crypto industry generally considers this a non-starter for all sorts of philosophical + practical reasons.
Crypto folks (hopefully) already know that Lazarus is one of the most prevalent threat actors targeting this industry.
They rekt more people, companies, protocols than anyone else.
But it's good to know exactly how they get in. Bc another smart contract audit won't save you.
For example, one long-time fave method:
- Contact employee via social/messaging app
- Direct them to a Github for a job offer, "skills test," or to help with a bug
- Rekt individual's device
- Gain entry to company's AWS
- Rekt company (and their users)