This incident comes at a time when Sanctum Protocol has been touching skies. In June, the protocol’s total value locked (TVL) surpassed $1 billion.
Earlier on Tuesday, the renowned Solana-based decentralized protocol, Sanctum Protocol, sounded the alarm over a major security incident. The platform has reported the loss of control over its main domain, unstake.it, which has been taken over by an unidentified entity. This breach poses a severe threat to users, as it could lead to potential scams and phishing attempts.
In an urgent announcement on social media platform X, Sanctum Protocol, popular for its liquid staking token services, informed its users of a critical security issue. The announcement states:
“We don’t have the domain unstake.it anymore, and it’s come to our knowledge a random entity has taken control of it, and it’s likely now a scam/phishing website. Please do not access the website or use it!”
The Sanctum team has advised its customers to refrain from accessing or engaging with the unstake.it website. Those who have previously granted permissions to this site are strongly encouraged to revoke these permissions without delay. This action is important to protect both their digital assets and personal data from potential compromise.
Moreover, after about an hour of the initial warning, the team stated that the domains have been blacklisted on wallets. It stated:
“We’re in the process of getting the domain revoked and unhosted, will update when this happens.”
This incident comes at a time when Sanctum Protocol has been touching skies. In June, the protocol’s total value locked (TVL) surpassed $1 billion. Currently, the TVL stands at $999 million, almost doubled in value since early May, according to DefiLlama.
Before this cyber attack, Sanctum faced backlash regarding its CLOUD token airdrop earlier in July. The airdrop led to major disappointment within the community, with many recipients expressing anger over the token distribution.
At present, the CLOUD token is trading around $0.278, down by more than 3% in the last 24 hours. The token has experienced a consistent decline since its launch and currently has a market cap of $50 million.
Security Breaches in the DeFi Sector
The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has witnessed several major security breaches in recent years. One of the most notable incidents was the Ronin Network hack in March 2022, resulting in a loss of over $615 million.
Other significant breaches include the Nomad Bridge hack in August 2022, which resulted in nearly $190 million in token losses. Similarly, in September 2022, Wintermute suffered a DeFi hack, losing $160 million.
Most recently, on July 12, 2024, the DeFi protocol DoughFina on the Ethereum chain experienced a hack, leading to the theft of around $1.8 million worth of crypto assets.
As the DeFi space continues to grow, the importance of strong security measures and vigilant user practices cannot be overstated.
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