Recent revelations from onchain intelligence platforms Arkham and Cyvers suggest that the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Uwu Lend may have fallen victim to a significant security breach. According to reports, over $19 million has been allegedly siphoned from the lending protocol in what appears to be a potential exploit.

The Exploit Unveiled
Arkham, a prominent onchain intelligence company, sounded the alarm about the suspected exploit within the Uwu Lend protocol on June 10. The platform disclosed that an estimated $19.3 million had been drained from the DeFi protocol and provided explorer links to the pertinent address and exploit transaction.

Uwu Lend, a lending platform in the DeFi space, is essentially a fork of Aave's protocol and was launched on September 21, 2022. Notably, the platform was founded by Michael Patryn, who goes by the alias "Sifu" and is famously known as the co-founder of the now-defunct Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX. Patryn has a controversial history within the crypto industry.

Real-time alerts from the Cyvers platform corroborated the concerning developments surrounding Uwu Lend. Cyvers issued notifications to the crypto community, revealing a series of suspicious transactions involving the protocol. The attacker purportedly executed three transactions, resulting in the extraction of approximately $19.5 million from the platform. Furthermore, Cyvers cautioned that the hack was still ongoing, implying that the total amount siphoned could escalate. Presently, the attacker is purportedly swapping the stolen digital assets to Ethereum.

Additional Insights into the Attack
Cyvers shed further light on the situation, noting that the attacker had received funding from Tornado Cash two days before the incident. Additionally, the security firm highlighted the detection of the malicious contract deployment preceding the hack transactions. Cyvers emphasized that their security systems could have potentially prevented the loss of all funds for Uwu Lend, underscoring the importance of robust security measures in the DeFi ecosystem.