The hacker who looted the crypto exchange Poloniex has started moving Ethereum (ETH) to the mixing service Tornado Cash, according to the digital asset de-anonymizing platform Arkham.
Arkham notes the hacker moved 1126.1 ETH worth more than $3.4 million into Tornado Cash across a series of 20 transactions on Monday and Tuesday.
They represent the exploiter’s first moves into the controversial Ethereum-based crypto mixer, which helps users conceal their digital assets.
The hacker raided Poloniex in early November, stealing $56 million worth of ETH, $48 million worth of Tron (TRX) and $18 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC), as well as smaller amounts of other crypto assets.
The exchange, which is owned by Tron founder Justin Sun, offered a 5% white hat bounty that went unaccepted. and the hacker still holds $181.47 million worth of crypto in their primary address, according to Arkham.
Justin Sun-affiliated projects have endured a prolific string of attacks in the past several months: In September, hackers exploited the Sun-linked exchange giant HTX for approximately 4,999 Ethereum worth $7.9 million, according to the blockchain security firm PeckShield.
Then in November, hackers hit HTX and Heco Bridge, another Sun-linked project that’s used to move funds between Ethereum and energy-saving blockchain Heco Chain, for a combined $100 million, according to cybersecurity firm Cyvers.
And in January, hackers once again struck HTX, hitting the exchange with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that caused a brief outage.
A DDoS attack is a malicious attempt by bad actors to flood the target website with traffic to overwhelm the site’s infrastructure.
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