In a stunning blow to the cryptocurrency industry, Bybit, one of the world’s leading crypto exchanges, has fallen victim to a massive hack, losing over $1.4 billion worth of Ethereum (ETH) and related tokens. The breach, confirmed by Bybit CEO Ben Zhou on Friday, marks the largest cryptocurrency theft in history, eclipsing the infamous $620 million Ronin network hack of 2022.
The attack targeted Bybit’s Ethereum multisig cold wallet during a routine transfer to a warm wallet. According to Zhou, the hacker employed a sophisticated “masked” transaction technique, manipulating the user interface of the Safe platform to display a legitimate address and URL. This deception tricked wallet signers into approving a malicious smart contract update, granting the attacker control over the wallet’s logic. In a matter of minutes, approximately 401,346 ETH—valued at over $1.1 billion at current prices—along with 90,376 stETH, 15,000 cmETH, and 8,000 mETH, were siphoned off
