The crypto world is full of opportunities missed and grabbed, days full of excitement and despair. This never sleeping market doesn’t fail to deliver. However, not without its storms. While the world stood by applauding the ATH of Bitcoin only a few days back alluring fresh attention to experience the crypto awe. SUI experienced a major security breach. Sui blockchain was rattled to the core by falling as a victim of a massive exploit that resulted in the theft of approximately USD223 million. Sui was famed for its backup team (Majourly from Meta) and was a reliable blockchain network for developers. Its hacking has raised eyebrows, sparked fear about crypto investments and to an extent, it has seeded doubts about blockchain’s security.
Let us dive deep and understand what exactly happened? And how it might change the face of crypto trading
Hacker, Manipulation, Money. Sounds exciting right? For those who have heard the news and are yet unaware of what exactly happened, here’s the full story. Cetus Protocol detected that an attacker had found a loop in its smart contracts. He used fake tokens to manipulate the price curves and reserve calculations. This move made him extract real assets from multiple liquidity pools. The result? Investor assets dropped by more than $330 million. 
The incident left us with a thought. DeFi is risky, no matter how smart its team is. Even the intelligent contracts can have hidden flaws that skilled hackers may take advantage of.
Now this is one part of the story, the other part tells us how the situation was handled. An immediate action was the call of the situation and that is what they did. They quickly locked down its smart contract, pausing around USD 162 million of compromised funds. The three core pillars Sui Foundation, associate builders and blockchain security researchers were alerted. This was important as they were the first line of action for tracing stolen assets and checkin for additional risk on Sui. It just took a couple of hours for Cetus to identify and confirm the root cause and acting swiftly they patched the vulnerable package.
In its next step, Cetus offered a whitehat settlement to the hacker in exchange for the return of the outstanding balance. They also offered to refrain from legal action if the terms were met. Of-course there is a time sensitivity of this offer. Along with all these, anti-cybercrime organizations have been engaged for the assistance. That means, Cetus is all set to follow a legal path if negotiation fails. Also, Cetus has pledged to provide a full report once the investigation gets ove. This will enable the community to understand the glitch and will prevent future occurrence.
The outcome is what anyone could have expected. Even though the actions were swift, they were not quick enough. USD223 million was stolen and CETUS token has faced the music by more than 40%. However, it has not shaken investor confidence and the SUI token held its ground, experiencing only a slight decline and even showing a 2.2% increase at one point
While incidents like these are reminders of the market’s vulnerability, it also highlights the industry’s commitment to correct itself. The DeFi space is still relatively young. Hacks, though unfortunate, helps its continuous growth and improves its security practices in the long run. These incidents play their part in the learning in creating a secure financial future. It is for us too, to make sure that our private keys are not shared with any third party platforms. A lot of hacks happen when we walk in traps of fake phishing sites.
Irrespective of odds, Trust in crypto investment is not just a blind faith. It is understanding of a rapidly evolving platform which is focused on building a more secure and transparent digital economy.
