Polter Finance Hacked for $12 Million

The decentralised lending platform Polter Finance has fallen victim to an attack on the Fantom blockchain, losing the majority of its assets—over 16.1 million SGD (~$12 million). The personal loss of the project’s founder, known as Whichghost, amounted to approximately 300,000 SGD (more than $223,000).

the following is the police report filed regarding @polterfinance exploit $POLTER pic.twitter.com/1PycJIrbZV

— whichghost ? | Polter Finance (@whichghost) November 17, 2024

The incident was discovered on the morning of November 17. Preliminary data suggests that the hacker manipulated the pricing mechanisms of the SpookySwap (BOO) token on the Fantom blockchain using oracles.

Experts from QuillAudits explained to Decrypt that the perpetrator artificially inflated the token’s price through a flash loan and withdrew a significantly larger amount of other assets. 

The funds for the attack originated from the Tornado Cash mixer. 

“I did not provide my login details (private keys) to anyone and believe that the exploit affected a recently deployed smart contract on my platform, leading to unauthorised transactions,” stated Whichghost.

Following the breach, Polter Finance suspended operations to contain the damage. 

Analysts at Cyvers Alerts estimate the platform’s losses at $7 million.

?ALERT?@PolterFinance has reported an exploit on the #Fantom chain. Over $7M in digital assets have been stolen!
Transaction: https://t.co/2sFDXiLkpm
? The attacker was originally funded via @TornadoCash on #Ethereum, with funds later bridged to #Fantom.
The team has taken… https://t.co/dYgVzDdsoh pic.twitter.com/N1u5sh7BPf

— ? Cyvers Alerts ? (@CyversAlerts) November 18, 2024

According to DeFi Llama, prior to the attack, Polter Finance’s TVL was approximately $9.7 million. At the time of writing, the figure stands at $60,435.

The Polter Finance team identified the wallets involved and traced the movement of funds to the Binance exchange. The investigation is ongoing. 

The platform was paused soon after the exploit was identified.
Bridges were notified.
We identified wallets involved and traced it to Binance.
We are still investigating the nature of the exploit.
We are in the processing of contacting the Authorities.

— polterfinance? (@polterfinance) November 17, 2024

The platform has sent a message on the blockchain to the perpetrator, expressing willingness to negotiate and drop any claims if the funds are returned. 

We are formally reaching out on-chain to the exploiter regarding the $POLTER exploit. pic.twitter.com/XKrYlahaSx

— polterfinance? (@polterfinance) November 17, 2024

Back in October, the lending protocol Radiant Capital suffered an attack amounting to over $50 million.