The Great Crypto Heist Fumble: When Hackers Forget to Transfer Funds

What Happened at Zeed?

In a twist that feels more like a sitcom episode than a real-world event, a decentralized finance (DeFi) hacker has managed to mess up what could have been another headline-grabbing heist. The culprit, who targeted the relatively unknown lending protocol, Zeed, found themselves with a cool million-dollar bounty—only to drop the ball at the finish line!

The Attack Unfolds

The cyber-criminal capitalized on a vulnerability that allowed them to mint extra tokens while messing with the protocol’s reward distribution. Sound complicated? Well, it is! They sold these tokens, causing the price to crash to a chilling zero but still managed to grab about $1.04 million for their efforts. What a classic case of “all’s well that ends well”—that is, until it didn’t!

Timing is Everything

As reported by the blockchain security troupe over at BlockSec, a security flaw was spotted by the ever-watchful PeckShield. Just after 8:00 AM UTC on a Thursday (because what could be more exciting than doing illicit activities before breakfast?), the alerts began to ring out. The funds were swiftly relocated to what they termed an “attack contract”—think of it as a criminal’s bank vault, but a ridiculously nested and complex one.

Oops! Did They Forget Something?

In a strange turn of events reminiscent of the classic “oops, I did it again,” the hacker became so thrilled with their heist that they neatly set the attack contract to self-destruct, forgetting the small matter of transferring their freshly acquired loot first! Poof! Just like a magic trick gone wrong, and suddenly, over a million dollars worth of BSC-USD tokens are forever trapped in that contract. Talk about writing your own punchline!

A Trend of Wacky Exploits

This incident isn’t the only head-scratching exploit in the DeFi realm. The landscape is filled with peculiar stories, like the hacker who turned a $612 million heist into an Ask Me Anything session embedded in ETH transactions. Apparently, they were just “hacking for fun.” So, what’s the lesson here? Perhaps it’s a reminder that, in both crime and comedy, timing—and attention to detail—are everything.