Binance Smart Chain DeFi Protocol Qubit Finance Exploited, Hacker Steals $80 Million

Making strong claims to be the future of finance, decentralized finance, popularly known as DeFi, has gained massive success, with the defi sector currently holding more than $220 billion.

Despite their successes, decentralized protocols have become prime targets for cybercriminals. According to Immunefi, funds lost in DeFi hacks and scams in 2021exceeded $10.2 billion.

Following a report on January 28, Qubit Finance now joins the list of ever-growing defi protocols to suffer a major exploit.

Qubit Finance Exploited for $80 Million 

Qubit Finance, a DeFi lending and borrowing protocol on the Binance Smart Chain, was exploited on January 28, with the hacker making away with over 206,809 BNB ($80 million) from its lending pools.

Developers of Qubit Finance reported that “the hacker minted unlimited xETH to borrow on BSC.” According to Qubit, its team is currently working with security and network partners on the next steps.

After a post mortem on Qubit Finance’s chain, the security firm, Certik reported that the attacker utilized a deposit option in the QBridge contract to illegally mint 77,162 qXETH.

PeckShield adds that the hacker used them to drain the entire amount of BNB held on QBridge. According to data, Qubit’s hack is the seventh-largest DeFi exploit by the amount of funds stolen.

On the Flipside

• The Qubit Finance team has sent an on-chain message to the hacker, offering a bounty of $250,000 in return for the stolen fund.

Why You Should Care

While hacks, scams, rug-pulls, and protocol exploits are common in the crypto sector, their presence has raised concerns and calls for stiffer regulation of cryptocurrencies.