Orbit Chain confirms hack, warns of scam repayment offers

After confirming the breach, Orbit Chain said it is investigating the situation and warned users not to fall for any repayment scams.
After confirming the breach, Orbit Chain said it is investigating the situation and warned users not to fall for any repayment scams.

Cross-chain bridge Orbit Chain has confirmed that it suffered an unauthorized breach of access to its ecosystem on Dec. 31 at 8:52 pm UTC. 

Orbit Chain posted on X (formerly Twitter), saying it is currently conducting a “comprehensive analysis” of the cause of the breach alongside cybersecurity startup Theori.

It also said it’s “actively engaging” with international law enforcement agencies. 

Blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence reported the losses totaled around $81.68 million in various cryptocurrencies, including Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Ether (ETH), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and Dai (DAI).

Orbit warned users not to fall for any scam reimbursement offers, which have begun circulating on social media under accounts with similarly named handles. 

Source: Orbit Chain on X

Related: Thunder Terminal claims funds safe after $240K attack, hacker says otherwise

Orbit users have slowly started to reach out to the platform on social media, asking for transactions to be canceled and to receive funds back. One user said their transaction is still pending validation. 

Another user posted that users are confused and “on edge” waiting for validators, saying that no one is answering requests.

Orbit Chain has yet to publicly respond to any of these questions from users. 

The platform started in 2018 in South Korea as a multi-asset blockchain for cross-chain transactions between decentralized networks. It is often used to transfer assets between Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible networks and Klaytn.

According to an end-of-the-year report from blockchain security platform Immunefi, $1.8 billion was lost to Web3 hackers and scammers in 2023. Of this amount, 17% can be accredited to the North Korean hackers Lazarus Group. 

The attack on peer-to-peer trading platform Mixin Network came in as the year’s largest exploit, with a total of over $200 million in losses.

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