Scam and Fraud 

Hacker takes control of Tornado Cash and $680,000

Patricia Zamwana 1 min read
Tornado Cash, Hack, Coinpri, Crypto

Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer sanctioned by the United States for its alleged involvement in money laundering, has been the target of a major hack. The hacker allegedly conducted malicious actions to take control of the governance of Tornado Cash. As a result, Binance Had to temporarily suspend deposits of the protocol governance token, TORN.

Table of Contents
  1. Hacker takes absolute control of Tornado Cash DAO with malicious proposal
  2. How did the hacker do it?

Hacker takes absolute control of Tornado Cash DAO with malicious proposal

A hacker has taken over the DAO from Tornado Cash thanks to a malicious action. The cryptocurrency mixing service, under US sanctions, was the victim of a cyber attack allowing the attacker to take full control of the protocol.

According to information provided by an influential researcher at Paradigm known as @samczsun on Twitter, the hacker managed to take control of the governance through a malicious maneuver. The hacker exploited the governance mechanism to change key elements and claim false votes.

How did the hacker do it?

It’s essential to understand how Tornado Cash works beforehand. As a protocol based on blockchain technology, this crypto mixer is governed by a distributed network of computers, and has its own governance token called TORN. However, this token is of crucial importance in the field of decentralized finance (DeFi), as it grants its holders the power to make major decisions regarding the protocol.

With the fraudulent votes he obtained, the hacker now has total authority over the protocol. He started by removing 10,000 TORN tokens and selling them for $25,600. He didn’t stop there. He also emptied the rest of the locked votes, which amounted to a total of 483,000 TORN, according to blockchain analyst EmberCN.

The hacker then reportedly made a deposit of 6,000 TORN on the Bitrue Exchange. The rest of the funds were laundered through the Tornado Cash mixer, allowing him to get nearly $680,000 in ETH. As of today, the hacker still holds approximately 100,000 TORN.

In response to these events, Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange platform, announced the temporary suspension of TORN deposits. This has raised questions and concerns about the consequences that will follow.

Tornado Cash, already sanctioned for money laundering, is now facing a major hack, which seriously threatens its growth prospects. It remains to be seen whether the blender can survive this ordeal.