The crypto industry gets hit with yet another exploit.
Level Finance, a decentralized and non-custodial perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) on BNB Chain, has experienced a hack.
According to the announcement shared on Twitter, Level Finance revealed that the malicious actor managed to steal over 214,000 of their Level Finance (LVL) tokens.
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However, after the exploit, the hacker swiftly swapped LVL for 3,345 Binance Coin (BNB), which amounted to roughly $1.01 million.
The vulnerability was traced back to the "LevelReferralControllerV2" smart contract, which, according to blockchain security firm Peckshield, contained a bug that let hackers make "repeated referral claims" from the same epoch.
Level Finance later confirmed this finding in a statement shared on Discord.
Binance chain explorer BSC Scan data revealed that the V2 controller contract received multiple "claim multiple" function calls within the last 48 hours. At the time of reporting, Level Finance hadn't yet changed the contract's implementation but promised to roll out a new referral contract within the next 12 hours.
According to Level Finance, the crypto exchange's liquidity pools and related DAOs were left unharmed by the exploiter.
As per a Twitter user dubbed DeDotFiSecurity, Level Finance's team has "temporarily shut down the referral program" to halt the exploit in its tracks. On Discord, the decentralized exchange informed its users that the incident had been isolated from other potential attacks and urged them to "stand by for a full post-mortem."
This incident highlights the importance of smart contract security and the potential dangers that can arise from even a single vulnerability.
In other DeFi-related news, at the end of last week, UK's HM Revenue and Customs rolled out a consultation paper on modifying the tax treatment of decentralized finance (DeFi) lending and borrowing activities.