Crypto Platform NEAR Intents Loses $3.8M in Hack

A cryptocurrency platform called NEAR Intents has been hacked, losing $3.8 million of its users' money. The good news for users: the company promises to pay everyone back in full.

What is NEAR Intents? It's a "cross-chain protocol" — think of it as a bridge that helps move different types of cryptocurrency (digital money) between separate blockchain networks (the computer systems that record crypto transactions). This kind of service makes it easier for people to trade and transfer their digital coins.

What went wrong? The company said the hack happened because of a bug (a mistake in the software code) in the part of the system that handles deposits and withdrawals. Hackers found and exploited this weakness to steal funds.

Here are the key facts:

• $3.8 million in user funds was stolen
• The company says it will compensate (repay) all affected users
• The software flaw has already been fixed (patched)
• The theft was reported to law enforcement, and investigators are trying to trace and recover the money

Where did the money go? A blockchain investigator known as ZachXBT found that the stolen funds were moved to a crypto exchange called KuCoin, then converted into Bitcoin (the world's most popular cryptocurrency). It's still unknown who the hackers were.

An interesting twist: This hack came right after NEAR Intents had actually *helped* another company. Last week, a crypto exchange called Bitget suffered a massive $388 million security breach. NEAR Intents helped by blocking $50 million and freezing over $500,000 tied to that attack. Bitget's CEO suspects North Korean hackers were behind the Bitget breach.

The bottom line: Even companies that work to stop hackers can become targets themselves. While losing $3.8 million is serious, NEAR Intents is taking responsibility by promising to repay users and fixing the flaw that allowed the attack. This story is also a reminder that crypto security remains a major challenge — total crypto security losses for the period have now passed $1 billion.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://cointelegraph.com/news/near-intents-exploit-assistance-bitget-hack?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound