New Report: $2.5 Million Ethereum Fee is Neither Fat Fingers nor Money Laundering
cryptocurrency news

New Report: $2.5 Million Ethereum Fee is Neither Fat Fingers nor Money Laundering

THELOGICALINDIAN - The two Ethereum affairs area senders paid millions of dollars in fees for affairs account as little as 130 are broadly believed to be bribery According to analysis from analytics aggregation PeckShield the hackers were reportedly blackmailing an alien barter by sending out affairs with absonant fees in adjustment to avoid the multisignature aegis of the barter and get abroad with the funds they blanket through a phishing attack

Over $5 Million Paid in Ethereum Transaction Fees

Earlier this week, abstracted affairs were beatific on the Ethereum arrangement that accrued over $5.6 actor in fees for the mining pools that candy it. According to abstracts from Etherscan, an alien wallet beatific out affairs account aloof several hundred dollars, but paid tens of bags of ETH in fees.

The account about the absonant Ethereum transaction fees advance fast through the crypto community, arch abounding to accept that it could be added than an honest aberration in which the sender switched the bulk they capital to accelerate with the fee they capital to pay. 

Many arresting choir in the industry acclaimed that this could be a awful act done by a hacker either to bribery or account addition blazon of abuse to a company. PeckShield, a blockchain analytics aggregation based in China, believes that this is a archetypal case of blackmail, area the absonant Ethereum transaction fees were absolutely gas amount ransomware attacks. 

What Most Likely Happened

According to PeckShield’s report, the “attacks” best acceptable began back an exchange’s hot accumulator fell victim to a phishing attack, in which hackers took over the company’s servers. However, as best exchanges accept a clandestine key that requires multi-signature verification, the hackers wouldn’t accept been able to admission its funds and alteration them to their own addresses. 

Instead, PeckShield advisers speculated, they accomplished that there was a accumulation of addresses whitelisted by the barter area funds could be beatific after the charge for multi-signature verification. By sending out atomic affairs with absonant fees, the hackers were actually afire the exchange’s funds. According to ChainNews, this was best acceptable done in adjustment to burden the barter to pay a bribe to the hackers. 

This, however, couldn’t aftermost forever, as the abode taken earnest by the hackers has a antithesis of 21,000 Ethereum. 

While absolutely feasible, it’s important to agenda that this is still alone a theory. PeckShield’s address didn’t analyze the barter they accept was affected, nor did they accommodate any added advice about the hackers.