Orbit Chain Suffers Estimated $81M Hack, Assets Yet to be Moved

By: Eliza Bennet

Cross-chain platform, Orbit Chain has suffered a major hack, with the estimated loss believed to be around $81M, according to an announcement made on Jan. 1. The burgeoning company confirmed on its social space about an 'unidentified access' to its bridge platform on Dec. 31, and has stated to be in cooperation with international law enforcement and security firm, Theoria, to unearth the root cause of this security breach.

Details about the attack released by Orbit Brush indicate the attacker leveraged Tornado Cash for initial ETH supply, and subsequent receipt of stolen cryptocurrency through several wallet addresses. Amid this catastrophic event, Orbit Chain has not yet placed on record the impact on the users, or any recovery initiatives. The project cautioned against fraudulent reimbursement offers emerging during these times. The project also announced its attempts to freeze assets in collaboration with crypto exchanges and efforts to contact the attacker.

While Orbit Chain has not disclosed the exact volume of assets stolen during this attack, security firm PeckShield has estimated this attack’s value to be $81.5 million. The component breakdown of this vast amount is held as $30 million USDT, $10 million USDC, $10 million DAI, 230.879 WBTC, and 9500 ETH. It is believed that the attacker used the decentralized exchange Uniswap to swap some funds for ETH. Amid tackling severe crisis, Orbit Chain confirmed on Jan 2 that the stolen assets had not been relocated from the attacker's address.