In the midst of the efforts made by the team behind Nomad Bridge to restart the site, a recent transfer of 1,200 ETH has been spotted coming from one of the wallet addresses connected to the hack.
A wallet address belonging to Nomad Bridge, the victim of a $190 million hack the previous week, has just transferred a total of $1.57 million worth of ETH to the untraceable crypto currency mixer Tornado Cash.
According to the data (1) provided by PeckShield, those responsible for attacking the cross-chain interoperable protocol sent 1,205 ETH to Tornado Cash, equivalent to around $1.5 million.
#PeckShieldAlert @nomadxyz_ bridge exploit related address has transferred ~1,205 $ETH (~$1.5M) to Tornado Cashhttps://t.co/tBpkQXjqDW pic.twitter.com/3308uOzMfs
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) January 9, 2023
It is abundantly evident that the hackers have resumed their malicious activities and are currently transferring funds to various crypto currency mixing sites to render them untraceable.
The most recent behavior points to the possibility that the hacker is cashing in funds. An additional investigation reveals that the hacker sent twelve batches, each consisting of one hundred ETH, to the authorized mixer.
The Hack of the Nomad Bridge
The vulnerability known as Nomad Bridge was one of the top ten most significant crypto attacks discovered in 2022. Following the discovery of the security breach on August 1, 2022, a crowd of several hundred adventurers descended upon the bridge in a short time to take the entirety of the value stored there. Consequently, the Nomad Bridge incurred a total loss of $190 million.
Tokens belonging to Nomad Bridge were held hostage in a smart contract, which was later breached. The Nomad team has only been able to collect $30 million so far, which is very little compared to the amount of money lost by the platform.
Bridges have been the target of many hacking attempts throughout the last year of 2022, with hackers making off with several hundred million dollars.
Crypto Cash Mixers At Center of Major Crypto Laundering Operation
Major hacks occurred in decentralized finance (DeFi) over the past year. Cybercriminals have been effective in their attempts to exploit the bridges that connect the various blockchain platforms.
So far, more than $3 billion worth of crypto assets have been held alone within the DeFi area as of the year 2022. Following the cyberattack that occurred in August 2022, Nomad's chief executive officer, Pranay Mohan, explained (2) as follows:
"Those who wear the white hat will not be prosecuted. However, we will continue collaborating with our partners, intelligence firms, and law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute any additional bad actors to the utmost extent permissible by the law."
Despite this, the Nomad crew has been working tirelessly over the past two weeks to attempt and reactivate the bridge. The team has been putting in a great amount of effort to track down those missing funds and make the necessary adjustments to get the Nomad Token Bridge back up and running again.
Immediately following the re-launch, holders of madAssets will be able to use the improved bridge to reclaim any funds that have been previously lost.
