Shezmu, a crypto lending platform, has successfully recovered nearly $5 million in assets after a hacking breach occurred earlier today. The platform’s team acted quickly to address the issue and negotiate with the attacker, securing the return of most of the stolen funds.
Shezmu vault breach and immediate response
Chaofan Shou, a prominent figure at Shezmu, revealed the breach on X, stating that the storage vault holding ShezUSD stablecoins was compromised. Around $4.9 million worth of $ShezUSD was stolen in the attack. Although there were initial concerns about whether this was a hack or a potential rug pull, the team later confirmed the incident involved an actual exploit of the ShezmuUSD stablecoin vault.
The platform immediately offered a bounty to the hacker. They proposed that no legal action would be taken if the hacker returned the funds within 24 hours. A 10% bounty was initially set, but the Shezmu team clarified that failure to comply would escalate the matter to legal authorities.
Negotiations lead to partial fund recovery
Through an on-chain dialogue with the hacker, Shezmu negotiated an increase in the bounty to 20%, ultimately convincing the attacker to return 80% of the stolen assets. The team emphasized that the hacker’s wallet was linked to a KYC (Know Your Customer) exchange, making it possible to trace the individual involved. Shezmu also promised to classify the incident as a white-hat hack if the remaining funds were returned.
Within hours of the negotiation, Shezmu began receiving the stolen Dai tokens. The hacker returned 282.18 ETH and 137 WETH as part of the recovery effort. The team has urged users and investors to avoid interacting with the platform’s Oasis vault until further security updates are made.
Previous hacks in the Crypto industry
This incident follows another major hack involving WazirX, an Indian cryptocurrency exchange that recently lost $230 million in a similar breach. Unlike Shezmu, WazirX has not made significant efforts to recover the stolen funds. Additionally, the exchange has not formally acknowledged the hack; instead, it blames the loss on its custodian. As a result, WazirX has faced legal challenges from customers and rival exchanges, such as CoinSwitch. Shezmu’s swift response in negotiating with the hacker and recovering most of the stolen assets demonstrates a proactive approach to handling security breaches in the crypto space.