The Recovery Journey of $SUI After a Hacker Attack: How Does the Ecosystem Respond to Crises?
On May 22, the SUI ecosystem encountered a major security incident—the decentralized exchange Cetus was attacked by hackers, resulting in losses of up to $230 million. After the incident, the SUI team and community responded quickly, taking a series of measures to recover losses and enhance security.
Incident Timeline and Response Measures
Morning of May 22: Hackers attack the Cetus protocol, stealing $230 million in assets. The Cetus team urgently suspends the contract and issues a security announcement.
Afternoon of May 22: Hackers transfer out about $60 million across chains, but $162 million remains on the SUI chain. SUI validators quickly act to add the hacker address to the Deny List and freeze the remaining funds.
Evening of May 22: SUI Chief Product Officer @emanabio tweets to confirm that funds have been frozen and states that the refund process will be initiated.
May 23: The Cetus team begins to fix vulnerabilities and update the smart contract.
May 24: SUI opens a PR and proposes a plan to recover funds through an aliasing mechanism and a whitelist.
May 26: SUI initiates an on-chain governance vote to decide whether to upgrade the protocol to transfer the hacker's assets to a custodial address.
May 29: The voting results are out, with more than 2/3 of the validating nodes supporting the upgrade, and the protocol changes enter the execution phase.
May 30 - early June: The protocol upgrade takes effect, the hacker's assets are legally transferred, and the fund recovery process officially begins.
Can SUI Stand Up Again?
Although this incident has caused a certain impact on the SUI ecosystem, the team's and community's rapid response demonstrates strong crisis management capabilities. However, in June, SUI tokens will face a large-scale unlock, which may put selling pressure on the market, and prices may continue to be under pressure in the short term.
Investors are advised to remain cautious, focusing on SUI's subsequent security upgrades and ecosystem recovery progress. If the team can further enhance protocol security and rebuild market confidence, SUI still has a chance to get back on track.
