The Solana DeFi Exchange Drift Protocol was exploited, with over $285 million stolen

SolanaOn-chain data shows that decentralized exchange-based Drift Protocol is actively facing an exploit that resulted in over $200 million in funds being stolen.

The protocol, which is primarily used to trade perpetual futures, temporarily halted deposits and withdrawals amid the attack.

“Drift Protocol is experiencing an active attack,” X posted around 3:00 PM ET on Wednesday. The company posted: “Deposits and withdrawals have been suspended. We are coordinating with several security companies, bridges, and stock exchanges to contain the incident. This is not an April Fool’s joke.”

Reports of suspicious activity began about two hours ago, when users noticed large sums of money being transferred from the Drift Protocol vault to a Solana address that begins with “HkGz4K.”

The first account transfer occurred at approximately 11:06 a.m., when approximately 41 million JLP tokens worth $155 million were transferred from the Drift Vault to “HkGz4K.” Shortly thereafter, millions more of various crypto tokens were transferred to the attacker and eventually distributed to other wallets.

The title, which was first funded with 1 SOL last week, may have been able to access the potential exploit since then, after… Received a small transfer from Drift Vault worth Priced at about $2.52, according to on-chain data from Solana block explorer, Solscan.

After Wednesday’s exploits, total transfers from the protocol to the attacker’s address Adding up to more than $250 millionAccording to data from blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence.

Estimates from PeckShield Alerts indicate that Up to $285 million may have been exploited.

Drift Protocol has not yet identified the cause of the exploit, but researchers and security experts on the chain have suggested it may be the exploit. As a result of an exposed private keywhich allowed the attacker to compromise administration functions and influence vaults. In other words, human error, not technical error.

said Jiang Shixian, founder of blockchain security company PeckShield Decryption This attack relied on gaining privileged access to the Drift protocol.

“It is certain that the management keys behind Drift were leaked or hacked,” he said.

Drift that It had $550 million in total value unlockedAccording to DefiLlama, it has connected with other companies in the Solana ecosystem thanks to the wide range of assets available on its platform and its DeFi capabilities.

Some, like Solana’s publicly traded treasury companies industries forward and DeFi development company, They indicated that their coffers were not affected by the exploitation.

Other Solana-based infrastructure companies have done so, such as wallet provider Phantom Warnings implemented For users who may attempt to access Drift Protocol while investigations are ongoing.

Drift’s native token, DRIFT, is down nearly 28% on the day, and was recently trading at around $0.049. The token is down more than 98% from its November 2024 all-time high of $2.60.

Additional reports by Andrei Bijansky