BNB Chain-Based DeFi Protocol Atlantis Loans Loses $2.5M to Hackers
Atlantis Loans, a decentralized project built on the BNB Chain, suffered a $1.5 million exploit last week. The hackers behind the exploit have now extracted an additional $1 million from the protocol, adding to its losses.
Atlantis Loans is a lending DeFi protocol that allows users to borrow and supply digital assets to the protocol. Within its non-custodial ecosystem, users can earn interest on deposited assets into its liquidity pool. A distinctive characteristic of the project was its decentralized governance system, a feature that enabled users to create proposals and vote on them.
Atlantis Loans Parts Ways With $2.5M
In April, the developers behind the project abandoned it, citing financial crunches. Still, the smart contracts governing the project remained functional. Hackers utilized the opportunity to conduct a governance attack on June 10th.
To conduct the exploit, the bad actors made a malicious proposal that gives them control over the project’s contracts. With no developer team to screen the proposal, the attackers successfully manipulated the protocol to get enough votes to bring the proposal to fruition. Existing holders of the Atlantis token were urged to revoke the contract to curb the catastrophe, but that didn’t help.
Between June 10th-15th, hackers were able to steal $1.48 million worth of assets from the defunct BNB Chain-based project. Earlier today, the exploiters took out an additional $1.06 million, bringing the total losses to over $2.5 million. According to the blockchain analytics platform DeFiLlama, Atlantis Loans currently holds a total value locked (TVL) of $18,200.
DeFi Hacks Continue
With DeFi hacks becoming the new normal, hackers continue to use several schemes to conduct attacks on these projects and steal users’ funds. Lending protocol Sturdy Finance has been the talk of the town for almost a week now.
On June 12th, the project lost 442 ETH (worth about $800,000) to hackers. The malicious actors used several schemes, such as flash loans and reentrancy attacks, to exploit the protocol. This caused the project to suspend its on-chain activities.
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