EigenLayer Doubles Down on Efforts to Recover Millions Stolen from Its Platform

Ethereum restaking protocol EigenLayer has doubled down on efforts to recover millions stolen from one of the investors on its platform on October 4.

Ethereum restaking protocol EigenLayer has stepped up efforts to recover millions of dollars stolen from an investor on its platform on Oct. 4.

The protocol launched an investigation into “unapproved selling activity” involving its token EIGEN on Friday. EigenLayer later confirmed that the activity was the result of a hacking incident that saw 1,673,645 EIGEN tokens — valued at around $5.87 million — being stolen from one of its investors.

EigenLayer's response

In a follow-up community update on Oct. 5, EigenLayer said the tokens were “erroneously transferred” by a malicious actor that compromised an email thread between the investor and its custody service.

The attacker proceeded to quickly sell the stolen tokens via a decentralized swap for USDC before transferring the stablecoins to centralized exchanges HitBTC and Kraken in an attempt to cover their tracks.

Noting that a portion of the USDC had already been frozen, EigenLayer said it was working with the trading platforms and law enforcement to identify the hacker and hopefully recover the stolen funds.

The protocol clarified that the hack was an “isolated incident” limited to the investor’s email communication, and thus, did not stem from any vulnerabilities in its platform or smart contracts.

“EigenLayer platform, smart contracts and all other aspects of the protocol are operating as intended and have not been compromised in any way,” the statement reads.

Per the statement, EigenLayer is still investigating the incident and will update its community once more information is uncovered. The protocol had not issued any further updates on the situation at the time of writing.

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