Wintermute Incurs $160 Million Loss from Brute Force Private Key Compromise Linked to Profanity's Vulnerability

Summary # On September 20, 2022, Wintermute, a London-based algorithmic market maker offering liquidity across Centralized Finance (CeFi) and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) exchanges and over-the-counter (OTC) deals, was the victim of a security breach. The exploit resulted in a loss of approximately $160 million, impacting 90 different assets including stable coins, Bitcoin, Ether, and various altcoins. The attack was executed through a brute force private key compromise Source. The suspected vulnerability originated from Profanity, a service Wintermute used for generating vanity addresses, despite efforts to blacklist their Profanity-associated accounts after the vulnerability became known. ...