Event review: The bloodshed caused by the loss of engineer permissions
On February 24, 2025, the crypto lending platform Infini experienced an abnormal transfer incident, where assets worth approximately $49.5 million (including 17,696 ETH) were illegally transferred from the Ethereum contract address 0x9A79f4105A4e1A050Ba0b42F25351D394fA7E1DC to the address 0x3ac96134fb0e42a52d33045aee50b89790f05ed0 and began to be exchanged for the stablecoin DAI. According to Infini co-founders @0xsexybanana and @Christine, this incident was caused by the malicious use of internal engineer permissions, and the involved personnel have been controlled by the police. The platform has promised to fully compensate user assets.
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Impact analysis: Trust crisis and market ripples
1. Platform trust collapses
As an important participant in the DeFi field, this incident directly exposed Infini's smart contract security vulnerabilities and internal risk control defects. Although the founding team responded quickly and promised compensation, user trust in the platform's technical strength has been severely damaged, potentially leading to a massive withdrawal wave and even impacting the market liquidity of its token INFI.
2. The industry security alarm sounds again
This attack method is similar to recent incidents such as Bybit (with $1.44 billion stolen) and Ronin Network (with $620 million stolen)—social engineering attacks breached multi-signature wallet defenses. This indicates that even with a 'cold wallet + multi-signature' solution, breaches can still occur due to human oversight or permission management vulnerabilities.
3. Market panic spreads
After the incident, the price of ETH briefly dropped by 8%, and the Infini token INFI fell more than 12% in a single day, reflecting the market's increasing concern about DeFi security. If not handled properly, it could trigger a chain reaction affecting the entire crypto lending sector.
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Response strategy: Technical upgrades and ecological collaboration
1. Technical level: Strengthen smart contract auditing
Infini should immediately suspend related functions, hire top security teams (such as Certik and SlowMist) for a 'carpet-style' audit of the contract code, fix permission management vulnerabilities, and deploy on-chain monitoring tools for real-time alerts on abnormal transactions.
2. Ecological level: Build a security alliance
Referring to the joint investment of $4 billion by platforms such as Binance and Bitget to stabilize the market during the Bybit incident, Infini can collaborate with leading lending protocols like MakerDAO and Aave to establish an emergency liquidity pool to prevent the spread of systemic risk.
3. User level: Enhance security awareness education
Through official channels, release (Smart Contract Security Usage Guidelines), emphasizing the 'triple verification' principle of multi-signature wallets, and advising users to diversify assets across multiple decentralized platforms to reduce risks associated with a single project.
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Future outlook: DeFi security enters the 'post-cold wallet era'
This incident marks a new phase in the crypto industry characterized by a dual-track system of 'technical defense + ecological collaboration.' As national hacker teams like the Lazarus Group remain active, DeFi projects need to:
- Technological innovation: Explore cutting-edge technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-SNARKs) and formal verification to enhance contract security;
- Governance upgrade: Introduce a dual guarantee mechanism of 'bug bounty + insurance fund' to incentivize community participation in security governance;
- Regulatory collaboration: Promote the implementation of a global regulatory framework for crypto assets, and accurately strike against money laundering paths used by hackers.
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Conclusion
Although the Infini theft incident did not cause market turbulence at the level of Bybit, it exposed 'human weaknesses' and 'the limits of technical defenses,' sounding an alarm for the entire crypto industry. Only through the collaboration of technology, ecology, and regulation can we rebuild the foundational trust users have in DeFi. We look forward to Infini's follow-up disposal plan, which may reshape the new paradigm of DeFi security standards.
