Bybit recovers ETH stolen in hack
One of the main groups responsible for these attacks is the infamous Lazarus group, which is linked to North Korea. The group was behind 47 attacks last year, totaling more than $1.34 billion stolen.
Well-known cypherpunk and Blockstream CEO Adam Back took to his X account to criticize the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). As Back pointed out, the EVM is the main factor that allowed the attack to succeed.
In his analysis, Adam Back stated that the complexity of EVM transactions and the structure of Ethereum itself were the main reasons why hackers were able to drain the funds from Bybit's cold wallet.
The attack reportedly occurred when Bybit was trying to transfer $100 million in Ethereum from a cold wallet to a hot wallet. The hackers then exploited the blind signature mechanism involved in this process. In this way, they managed to manipulate the ETH smart contract and drain all the funds, resulting in a billion-dollar loss.
Adam Back criticizes EVM
On Saturday, Adam Back once again shared his opinions on the incident, highlighting that “Bitcoin’s dominance is growing” and criticizing Ethereum and EVM as “complex, fragile, blindly signed and insecure”.
Other influential figures in the crypto world, such as JAN3 CEO Samson Mow, ironically suggested that Vitalik Buterin promote a rollback on the Ethereum blockchain to recover the lost funds, similar to what happened in 2016 with the DAO hack, which resulted in the birth of Ethereum Classic (ETC).
However, the Ethereum team made it clear that, from the protocol’s point of view, the transaction that drained Bybit’s funds was as legal as any other on the network.
