Description

On October 16, 2024, over $50 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from Radiant Capital, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform. Radiant, which promotes itself as a comprehensive money market allowing users to deposit and borrow across various blockchains, provided a detailed post-mortem report on October 17. The report revealed that the attack compromised three of the platform’s developers, all of whom had long-standing, trusted roles within the organization. According to the report and several security experts, the hacker gained access to multiple private keys belonging to these developers, enabling the unauthorized draining of user funds. Despite the use of hardware wallets and the geographical distribution of the developers, which should have reduced the risk of a coordinated physical attack, attackers successfully compromised at least three core contributors through a sophisticated malware injection. These infected devices were then exploited to sign and execute malicious transactions. Radiant Capital noted that other devices could also have been targeted, indicating a broader threat. In a statement on the platform’s Telegram channel, Konstantin Levin, a Radiant official, shared that U.S. law enforcement agencies, alongside several blockchain security firms, were actively investigating the breach. Levin highlighted the sophistication of the attack, explaining that the developers’ compromised devices displayed legitimate transaction data while executing malicious activities in the background. These devices showed no clear warning signs beyond minor glitches and error messages during routine operations. The platform’s post-mortem emphasized the technical complexity of the breach, with Levin adding that both U.S. law enforcement and the blockchain security firm ZeroShadow were working diligently to freeze the stolen assets. Although deeply affected by the incident, Radiant Capital is committed to identifying the attacker and recovering the stolen funds as quickly as possible. The post-mortem report did not mention any plans to compensate users who lost funds in the breach. Researchers first noticed the theft on social media, observing the hacker converting the stolen funds into approximately 12,800 ETH, worth around $33.5 million, and 32,100 BNB, valued at $19.3 million. Some estimates suggest the total losses could exceed $58 million. Despite undergoing several security audits by prominent blockchain security firms such as Peckshield and Zokyo, this is the second significant breach affecting Radiant Capital in 2024, following the theft of $4.5 million in January.