Skyward Finance has reportedly suffered a major exploit that has resulted in the platform losing an estimated $3 million. Skyward is a major platform, which is prominently known for its initial DEX offering (IDO).
Skyward Finance Exploited
The IDO known for carrying out a fair distribution of tokens through the Near Protocol has suffered a major exploit. Due to the exploit, the platform has ended up losing around 1.1 million NEAR tokens.
The NEAR tokens are known for being the native tokens that are issued through the Near Protocol. The total NEAR tokens the protocol has lost translate to an estimated loss of $3 million.
Aurora Lab Broke the News
The news of Skyward Finance’s exploit was broken by Aurora Lab with the rest of the cryptocurrency community through Twitter.
Sanket Naikwadi, a community moderator at Aurora Lab was the one who posted the tweet. From the Near Protocol community, it was a user by the name “Nearscout” who noticed the exploit.
Nearscout Reported the Exploit
Nearscout was the one who reported the exploit to the rest of the Near Protocol community. He claimed that he could notice the treasury being drained.
Naikwadi revealed that it was NearScout who reached out to him stating that he could see the treasury being drained. Naikwadi thanked NearScout for his prompt approach and for helping them discover the exploit.
As per Naikwadi, the loss could have been much bigger than what they have faced, if it weren’t for NearScout’s fast communication.
Just as the issue was discovered, they acted fast and informed the entire Skyward team of the drain and the exploit. The multiple DeFi platforms operating on Near Protocol, Ref finance was also updated on the matter.
How Did the Exploit Happen?
According to the investigation report, the hacker initiated the hack by initiating a purchase of the skyward tokens. The team has revealed that the hacker acquired a large number of skyward tokens.
The hacker did this by acquiring the mentioned tokens through Ref Finance. Then the hacker went ahead with the redemption of these tokens through Skyward Finance’s Treasury, converting them to NEAR.
Surprisingly, the hackers ended up getting much nearer than they should have gotten from the sale of 1 SKYWARD token.
Caution by Naikwadi
Naikwadi tweeted that the entire community needs to be very cautious and alert when dealing with the SKYWARD Tokens. He asked the users to stop interacting with the Skyward Finance platform.
Instead, Naikwadi asked the users to redeem their tokens somewhere else. He asked the users to either swap them or redeem them at platforms other than Skyward Finance.