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
According to an official statement from on-chain options protocol FinNexus, part of FinNexus’ hardware has been attacked by malware, and an unknown hacker infiltrated the FinNexus system and managed to recover the private key of the ownership of the FNX token contract. FNX was minted, transferred or sold in large numbers in a short period of time, involving more than 300 million FNX tokens (about 7 million US dollars) in BSC and Ethereum. Attack method (per SlowMist): Private Key Leakage. Reported loss: $ 7,000,000.
Primary source
https://medium.com/phoenix-finance/finnexus-statement-regarding-the-may-2021-hack-d69e1b7617dc ↗Sourced from
slowmist
Technical record
- chain
- ethereum
- protocol
- FinNexus
- bug_class
- private-key
- date_occurred
- 2021-05-17
- loss_usd
- $7,000,000
- source_id
- sm:finnexus::2021-05-17
Related — same bug class· private-key