VERDICT —OUT OF SCOPE
Root cause is private-key / signer compromise — the on-chain contract behaved exactly as written. No pre-deployment source audit or bytecode review reaches the key-custody perimeter; this is operational-security territory (HSM/MPC hygiene, key rotation, hot-wallet isolation). Bytecode would show nothing wrong.
▰ METHOD
PRIVATE KEY
PRIVATE-KEY
Root cause
Root-cause analysis not yet published. The incident description below contains all currently available signal — review the attack transaction directly for definitive forensics.
Forensic narrative
On January 31st, according to blockchain investigator ZachXBT, Ripple fell victim to a hacking attack resulting in the theft of 213 million XRP, valued at approximately $112.5 million. Ripple's co-founder, Chris Larsen, tweeted, "Yesterday, there was unauthorized access to a few of my personal XRP accounts (not @Ripple) – we were quickly able to catch the problem and notify exchanges to freeze the affected addresses. Law enforcement is already involved." Attack method (per SlowMist): Private Key Leakage. Reported loss: $ 112,500,000.
Primary source
https://www.odaily.news/newsflash/352697 ↗Sourced from
slowmist
Technical record
- chain
- —
- protocol
- Chris Larsen
- bug_class
- private-key
- date_occurred
- 2024-01-31
- loss_usd
- $112,500,000
- source_id
- sm:chris-larsen::2024-01-31
Related — same bug class· private-key