Ongoing Solana-based wallet hack seeing millions drained

An ongoing, widespread hack has seen as much as $8 million in funds drained so far across a number of Solana-based hot wallets.

At the time of writing, Solana (SOL) is currently trending on Twitter as countless users are either reporting on the hack as it unfolds, or are reporting to have lost funds themselves, warning anyone with Solana-based hot wallets such as Phantom and Slope wallets to move their funds into cold wallets.

Blockchain investigator PeckShield on August 2 said the widespread hack is likely due to a "supply chain issue" which has been exploited to steal user private keys behind affected wallets. It said the estimated loss so far is around $8 million. 

#PeckShieldAlert The widespread hack on Solana wallets is likely due to the supply chain issue exploited to steal/uncover user private keys behind affects wallets. So far, the loss is estimated to be $8M, excluding one illiquid shitcoin (only has 30 holds & maybe misvalued $570M) pic.twitter.com/aTGNsTc6d8

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 3, 2022

Solana-based wallets providers including Phantom and Slope, and non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden are among those that have commented on the issue, with wallet provider Phantom noting that it is working with other teams to get to the bottom of the issue, although it says it does not “believe this is a Phantom-specific issue” at this stage.

We are working closely with other teams to get to the bottom of a reported vulnerability in the Solana ecosystem. At this time, the team does not believe this is a Phantom-specific issue.

As soon as we gather more information, we will issue an update.

— Phantom (@phantom) August 3, 2022

Magic Eden confirmed the reports earlier in the day by stating that “seems to be a widespread SOL exploit at play that's draining wallets throughout the ecosystem” as it called on users to revoke permissions for any suspicious links in their Phantom wallets.

Slope said it is currently working with Solana Labs and other Solana-based protocols to pinpoint the issue and rectify it, though there were "no major breakthroughs yet."

Still war-rooming through it. No major breakthroughs yet. Will follow up as soon as possible with any major conclusions and/or recommended practices.

— Slope (@slope_finance) August 3, 2022

Twitter user @nftpeasant said as much as $6 million worth of funds were siphoned from Phantom wallets during a 10-minute period on August 2. In one instance it appears a Phantom wallet user had $500,000 worth of USDC drained from their account.

???!!! https://t.co/sBDgxqGyaw

— Matthew Graham (@mattysino) August 2, 2022

Popular scam detective and self-described “on-chain sleuth” @zachxbt also did some digging and revealed to their 274,800 followers that the hackers initially funded the primary wallet associated with this attack via Binance seven months ago.

Related: Solana-based stablecoin NIRV drops 85% following $3.5M exploit

The transaction history shows that the wallet remained dormant until today before the hackers conducted transactions with four different wallets 10 minutes before the attack started.

Scammers wallet funded via Binance 7 months agohttps://t.co/5gQbObcsg4 https://t.co/sco5SPBrne pic.twitter.com/AL6Hm4F3R3

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) August 3, 2022

There have also been different reports on how many wallets have been affected and the extent of the damage so far.

Crypto tracking and compliance platform Mist Track stated via Twitter that as many as 8,000 wallets have been hacked, with $580 million sent to four addresses, however, commentators on the post are skeptical about the number.

Meanwhile, Ava Labs CEO and founder Emin Gun Sirer stated that the number was at 7,000 plus wallets, a number which is rising at around 20 per minute. He said he believes that as the transactions appear to be signed properly, "it is likely that the attacker has acquired access to private keys."

There's an ongoing attack targeting the Solana ecosystem right now. 7000+ wallets affected, and rising at 20/min. Because it's very early and the attack is ongoing, there's a lot of misinformation and speculation. So here are a few thoughts and clarifications.

— Emin Gün Sirer (@el33th4xor) August 3, 2022

Cointelegraph has reached out to Phantom for comment on the matter and will update the story if the firm responds.