A black-hat hacker who was able to steal $10 million worth of Ether tokens after compromising an Initial Coin Offering round has returned some part of the funds.
CoinDash, the startup behind the exploited ICO, updated on its blog that it has received a total of 10,000 ETH from the hacker’s wallet address. This is the second occurrence of its kind as the hacker had sent 488 ETH to CoinDash’s official ShapeShift account only a few days back — on September 12, 2017. The total recovered crypto assets after the two recoveries now amount to 2.94 million in USD at the press time.
CoinDash also hinted at an ongoing criminal investigation against the hacker, which might be the sole reason behind his impulsive renouncement of funds. Though the startup has not recovered the full amount yet — and there is a possibility that a large part of it has been spent already — but a rapid investigation is confirmed to be underway.
“We have notified the Counter Cyber Terrorist Unit in Israel, investigation efforts will increase. The hacker’s Ethereum address will continue to be tracked and monitored for any suspicious activity.” — read CoinDash’s latest blogpost update on Medium.
Earlier this year, CoinDash had announced the public sale of its institutionalized tokens to fund the development of its social trading platform. However, a hacker took control of the round by impersonating as the company. S/he tricked investors into sending Ethers to a fake CoinDash wallet address, resulting into the misrouting of funds and causing CoinDash a loss of $10 million.
The hacking was reminiscent of a hacking attempt at The DAO which caused the loss of $50 million in a similar fashion.
The company is yet to release a formal announcement which could offer more insights into the investigation. In the meantime, the CoinDash ICO participants are sure to rejoice and be hopeful for further fund recoveries in the coming days.
Image Credits via Flickr
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