Platypus Finance returns 90% of assets lost in hack

The hacker who breached the DeFi protocol Platypus Finance has returned 90% of the stolen assets after negotiations with the team. The project minimised losses to about 18,000 AVAX (about $164,700 at the time of writing).

1/ Following successful negotiations, we are making good progress and 90% of the funds stolen from the sAVAX pool have now been successfully returned by the exploiter. As promised, Platypus will guarantee that no legal action will be pursued.

— Platypus ? (?+?+?) (@Platypusdefi) October 17, 2023

“As promised, Platypus guarantees that no legal action will be pursued,” the statement said.

On October 12, the Avalanche-based protocol became the victim of an attack, losing about $2 million in digital assets. The hacker exploited a flash loan exploit.

Following the incident, Platypus halted all liquidity pools and began a security review. In a statement, the project promised to publish information soon on resuming withdrawals.

This is not the first hack of the protocol — in February, attackers drained assets worth $8.5 million. The hackers exploited a flash loan and a logic flaw in the solvency-check mechanism in the collateral contract. Later, the French police arrested suspects in the attack.

Platypus was not the only crypto project in October to recover a large portion of funds lost to cybersecurity incidents.

Earlier this month, the hacker transferred 5,000 ETH to the HTX exchange (formerly Huobi) that were stolen in late September, for a reward of 250 ETH. The attacker of the SocialFi platform Stars Arena on Avalanche, after negotiations with the team reimbursed about 90% of losses from the exploit. His bounty was 27,610 AVAX.

In the third quarter, the Web3-ecosystem projects recovered $61.2 million of losses from hacks and scams totaling $685.5 million — 8.9% of the total damage.