Published • loading... • Updated
Here is how Drift attackers drained more than $270 million using a Solana feature designed for convenience
Attackers used durable nonces and pre-signed approvals to seize admin control, drain more than $270 million, and freeze the protocol, researchers said.
- On April 1, an attacker drained $285 million from Drift Protocol, a Solana-based perpetual futures exchange, marking the second-largest exploit in the network's history and highlighting security risks beyond smart contracts.
- The exploit did not involve smart contract bugs; instead, attackers misused a legitimate Solana feature called 'durable nonces' to trick two of five Security Council multisig members into pre-approving malicious transactions.
- Using administrative access, the attacker created a fake token called CarbonVote Token to manipulate price oracles, enabling them to drain over $250 million from Drift's shared liquidity pool.
- Onchain investigator ZachXBT criticized Circle for failing to freeze stolen USDC as the attacker bridged over $230 million to Ethereum via Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol during U.S. business hours.
- Security experts warn that operational failures, rather than code vulnerabilities, are becoming the primary method for DeFi exploits, as Solana's SOL token fell 5.5% to around $78 following the incident.
Insights by Ground AI
38 Articles
38 Articles
Here is how Drift attackers drained more than $270 million using a Solana feature designed for convenience
The exploit did not involve a bug in Drift's code. It used "durable nonces," a legitimate Solana transaction feature, to pre-sign administrative transfers weeks before executing them, bypassing the protocol's multisig security in minutes.
·New York, United States
Read Full Article
SCIENCE & TECH: ‘This is not an April Fool’s joke’: Crypto platform Drift suspends services after millions stolen
Drift Protocol confirms $280 million crypto theft via sophisticated attack abusing durable nonces Hackers hijacked Security Council powers through misrepresented transaction approvals and social engineering Deposits in borrow/lend, vaults, and trading affected; incident marks largest crypto heist of 2026 so far Decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Drift has confirmed suffering a cyberattack in which threat actors stole hundreds of millions of d…
Coverage Details
Total News Sources38
Leaning Left1Leaning Right1Center4Last UpdatedBias Distribution67% Center
Bias Distribution
- 67% of the sources are Center
67% Center
L 17%
C 67%
R 16%
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
