Key Points
An Ethereum-based crypto wallet protocol, Safe, recently made “immediate security improvements” to its multi-sig solution.
This comes after a cyberattack on the Dubai-based exchange, Bybit, on February 21.
Cyberattack Details
North Korea’s Lazarus group managed to steal over $1.4 billion in Ether (ETH) from Bybit’s Ethereum wallet.
This was achieved by exploiting vulnerabilities in the Safe Wallet’s UI.
The hacking group injected hostile JavaScript code that specifically targeted Bybit, resulting in the theft of more than 400,000 ETH.
To avoid further attacks, Safe put its Wallet into lockdown mode.
This was followed by the announcement of a phased rollout and a reconfigured infrastructure.
Martin Koeppelmann, co-founder of Safe, revealed that the team made and implemented ten changes to the UI.
These changes were announced via a March 3 X.com post.
The protocol’s GitHub repositories showed updates such as “show full raw tx data now on UI” and “remove specific direct hardware wallet support that raised security concerns”, among other upgrades.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou discussed the incident on the When Shift Happens podcast with host Kevin Follonier.
He explained that the attack happened shortly after he signed a transaction to transfer 13,000 ETH.
Zhou also mentioned that he used a Ledger hardware wallet but was unable to fully verify the transaction details.
This issue, known as “blind signing”, is a common vulnerability in multi-sig crypto transactions.
Safe’s latest updates aim to provide signers with more detailed transaction data, according to Koeppelmann.
In response to a post from Kyber Network CEO Victor Tran about industry-wide security efforts, Koeppelmann highlighted the importance of collaboration.
However, he also noted that immediate damage control is the priority.
“We are still in the “putting out fire” mode – but once we have that behind us we need to come together and improve overall frontend and tx verification security,” Koeppelmann stated.
He added that solving this issue for good will require the involvement of many parties.
