ABNBc token plunges by 99.5% after cyberattack

Journalist Colin Wu, known on Twitter as Wu Blockchain, reported a new exploit in the crypto market — a hacker attacked the Ankr aBNBc contract. The attacker managed to mine 10 trillion aBNBc, causing the token’s price to plummet by 99.5%.

The hacker under the nickname 0x8d exchanged 10 BNB for 183,384.92 aBNBc, then converted them to hBNB and staked them on the Helio Protocol. The attacker did not stop there and borrowed $ 16 million worth of BHAY0 tokens to exchange them for HAY0. As a result, the HAY stablecoin fell to $ 0.2, losing its peg to the dollar.

The Ankr aBNBc contract was attacked and an additional 10 trillion aBNBc was minted. Ankr Exploiter has transferred 900 BNB into Tornado Cash. https://t.co/SnXPFiLS4y

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) December 2, 2022

As for the Ankr protocol, it is used by BNB Chain for liquid staking. After the hacker attack, the value of aBNBc dropped by 99.5%. The BNB token was also affected by the exploit, with its value dropping by 2.8%. According to the BNB Chain team, they are aware of the incident, so the hacker’s address has already been blacklisted.

The situation with aBNBc is not the only case when a token falls by more than 90% due to a hacker attack. In October, the QANX token dropped in value by 94% after the first-level blockchain QANplatform was hacked. Also, in late June, the Harmony Protocol team reported a cyberattack on the Horizon cross-chain bridge, as a result of which hackers stole assets worth about $ 100 million. At the time, blockchain representatives offered a reward of $ 1 million for the return of the stolen funds, but this amount was not enough for the hijackers. A similar situation occurred in August with the Nomad Bridge token.