Two brothers who were responsible for stealing $8.5 million from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Platypus have been allowed to walk free by a French court. The theft occurred on February 16 when hackers exploited a code error and withdrew all assets through an uncollateralized loan. The stolen funds were eventually tracked with the help of Binance’s security team and independent crypto investigators, leading to the identification of the hackers as Mohammed and Benamar M. The brothers claimed to be “ethical hackers” and admitted to the theft, offering to return the funds in exchange for 10% of the loot. Due to the similarity to a bug bounty attempt, the brothers were cleared of all criminal charges. However, during the exploit, 7.8 million euros worth of crypto tokens became inaccessible after getting stuck in a wallet. Platypus recently suffered another flash loan exploit, resulting in a loss of $2.2 million. The investigation revealed that the hack was carried out in three parts, draining various cryptocurrencies. Despite recovering 90% of the stolen funds, the incident highlights the vulnerabilities in DeFi protocols and the challenges in prosecuting such cases.

This News Article was automatically generated by Bob the Bot (AI)

Information	Details
Geography	Europe
Countries	🇫🇷
Sentiment	neutral
Relevance Score	1
People	Mohammed M., Benamar M.
Companies	Binance, CertiK, Platypus
Currencies	Avalanche, The Standard EURO
Securities	None