In October 2024, Tapioca DAO on Arbitrum was hacked, losing $4.4 million due to a private key compromise. The attacker exploited the vesting contract and minted quintillions of USDO stablecoin, causing a 97% drop in TAP token value. The funds were bridged to the BNB Chain. Tapioca later managed to recover 1,000 ETH by "hacking the hacker," with $4.2 million now secured in their treasury. The incident hints at potential North Korean hacker involvement.
Table 2: DPRK Cryptocurrency Thefts, January - December, 2024. Date: 2024-10-18; Victim: Tapioca DAO; DPRK APT: DPRK (Unidentified); Amount ($ Million): 4.7. Report: "In coordination with Chainalysis and Mandiant, MSMT Participating States have attributed the cryptocurrency heists in tables 2 and 3 to DPRK actors."
Description of the event: Tapioca DAO experienced a significant security breach, with attackers obtaining relevant private keys through social engineering attacks and stealing approximately $4.7 million in cryptocurrency. On October 25, Tapioca DAO released an incident analysis report stating that the security breach occurred because attackers successfully compromised the private keys of a core contributor responsible for smart contract development. SEAL911 confirmed that the attackers were part of a North Korean hacking group that used a contagious interview attack method to inject malware onto the contributor's computer, thereby gaining access to the private keys of their address to carry out the theft. | Amount of loss: $ 4,700,000 | Reference: https://mirror.xyz/tapiocada0.eth/RVcRuKmJAavD05ObYsyYOHLDJ4gkEZKwyY_Y0Gx6gNc
This modus operandi is commonly attributed to the Lazarus Group, which specializes in social engineering attacks
Tapioca DAO suffers a $4.5 million exploit after an attacker compromised its native token's vesting contract. [Date Occurred: -; Date Discovered: -]