Crackdown on $14.4 Million Holographic Hack: Multiple Arrests Made

Key points:

• Several people have been arrested regarding the June 13 Holograph hack.
• The hack involved a highly sophisticated attack on the Holograph protocol, a blockchain tokenization platform that is part of the Omnichain ecosystem.

Several people have been arrested in connection with the Holograph hack of June 13.

According to Holograph, the recent report is the result of a two-month investigation conducted by France’s Office for the Prevention of Cybercrime (OFAC), in collaboration with Italy’s Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate, Europol, the Brigade de Répression du Banditisme (BRI) and the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS).

With the help of French officials, the arrests were made in Italy. Major assets and electronics were seized and frozen. The suspects are expected to be extradited to France soon to face charges; their identities have not been released because the investigation is ongoing.

The hack involved a highly sophisticated attack on the Holograph protocol, a blockchain tokenization platform that is part of the Omnichain ecosystem.

Using a proxy wallet, a malicious actor used the protocol’s operator contract on June 13 to create 1 billion native Holograph (HLG) tokens worth $14.4 million. The event resulted in a sharp drop in the value of HLG tokens, which fell from $0.014 to a low of $0.0029 in nine hours, a drop of almost 80%.

Following the hack, Holograph enlisted the help of blockchain research firm Halborn to launch an internal investigation. In an in-depth post-mortem published by the company on July 2, it was revealed that a “disgruntled former contractor” was involved.

Tokens can be easily transferred across blockchains and retain their contract address thanks to Holograph’s platform design. Asset issuers can effectively index cross-chain data using this feature.

Holograph has continued its efforts to provide a reliable and secure tokenization platform for the Omnichain ecosystem, even after the hack.

It is expected that the investigation will reveal more information that will clarify the scope of the hack and the measures being taken to prevent future incidents.

After withdrawals were suspended due to a $235 million hack in July, Indian crypto exchange WazirX restored balances to all platform accounts on August 8.

Discrepancies between the information displayed on Liminal’s digital custody platform and the accurate transaction data on WazirX were identified by the exchange as the cause of the breach. Forty-five percent of WazirX’s reserves were lost.

Information about a maintenance window aimed at reversing certain agreements and recovering account funds has been made public by WazirX. Given the significant damage the attack has caused to the exchange, swift action is needed to recover the remaining funds and close the gaps.