Ever since Euler Finance fell victim to the biggest decentralized finance (DeFi) hack of 2023, the crypto community closely followed the $197 million loot on-chain — hoping to track down the attacker. Out of the series of transfers made by the hacker, one transaction of 100 Ether (ETH) was allegedly sent to an address associated with North Korea-linked actors.
Blockchain investigator Chainalysis identified that 100 ETH from Euler’s stolen funds was transferred to an address flagged in an older hack with links to North Korea.
100 ETH stolen in Monday’s #Euler Finance hack have moved to an address associated with a previous hack carried out by #NorthKorea-linked actors. This may mean the Euler hack is the work of #DPRK too, or could be misdirection by other hackers. We’ll share more details as possible https://t.co/DxvGsc90Z8 pic.twitter.com/5QPphNTyYY
— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) March 17, 2023
The hacker also transferred 3,000 ETH to Euler’s deployer account without disclosing their intent. However, no other transfers were made after that at the time of writing. In both cases, it was unclear whether the hacker was trolling or if they genuinely considered accepting Euler Finance’s bounty reward of $20 million.
While Chainalysis suspected the involvement of North Korea in the Euler Finance hack, it highlighted the possibility of misdirection by other hackers.
Related: Euler hacker seemingly taking their chances, sends funds to crypto mixer
Euler Labs CEO Michael Bentley shared his displeasure with the $197 million hack as he revealed that ten separate audits conducted over two years assured its security.
Euler has always been a security-minded project. The Euler smart contracts, including the vulnerable lines of code, were audited.https://t.co/SvNeoKEGuY
— Michael Bentley (@euler_mab) March 16, 2023
As Cointelegraph previously reported, blockchain security firms, including Halborn, Solidified, ZK Labs, Certora, Sherlock and Omnisica, conducted smart contract audits on Euler Finance from May 2021 to September 2022.
