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Security engineer pleads guilty to Nirvana Finance exploit and one other hack

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A software program engineer pleaded responsible to 1 depend of laptop fraud in reference to the hacking Nirvana Finance and an unnamed decentralized cryptocurrency change within the Southern District Court docket of New York on Dec. 14. The USA Legal professional’s Workplace stated the case was the first-ever conviction for hacking a sensible contract.

Shakeeb Ahmed, described as a “senior safety engineer for a global expertise firm,” was arrested in July in reference to the hack of the unnamed change on or about July 2 and three, 2022. In keeping with the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace assertion:

“AHMED carried out an assault on the Crypto Change by exploiting a vulnerability in one of many Crypto Change’s good contracts and inserting faux pricing knowledge to fraudulently trigger that good contract to generate roughly $9 million {dollars}’ value of inflated charges.”

Ahmed returned all however $1.5 million to the change, which “agreed to not refer the assault to regulation enforcement.” The change “allowed customers to change totally different sorts of cryptocurrencies, and paid charges to customers who deposited cryptocurrency to supply liquidity on the Crypto Change.”

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It was solely after his arrest that Ahmed admitted to the $3.49 million Nirvana Finance flash mortgage exploit, which passed off later that month. Nirvana offered him a $300,000 white-hat bounty for the return of the hacked funds by Twitter (now X).

In keeping with the assertion, Ahmed and Nirvana Finance haggled over the bounty, however Ahmed ultimately bought all of its ANA coin for a revenue, leading to Nirvana Finance’s closing.

“Ahmed used his technical knowhow to steal over $12 million and tried to cowl his tracks by swapping stolen crypto for Monero, utilizing cryptocurrency mixers, hopping throughout blockchains, and using abroad crypto exchanges.”

Ahmed, a U.S. citizen and New York Metropolis resident, was launched on bail after being charged in July. He will likely be sentenced on March 13, 2024.

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