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On Aug. 15, the blockchain tokenization platform Holograph reported that multiple arrests had been made tied to the June 13 hack where a malicious actor minted 1 billion Holograph (HLG), and transferred them to multiple crypto exchanges to sell the tokens.
Holograph worked with law enforcement such as France’s Office for the Prevention of Cybercrime (OFAC), the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement (Europol), the Search and Intervention Brigade (BRI), the Italian Directorate of Anti-Mafia Investigations, and Royal Cayman Islands Police Services (RCIPS) to search for the exploiter.
Although the arrests were made in Italy, the suspects will be extradited to France to face the charges. At this moment, the French authorities have claimed that the suspects' names will not be shared with the public due to the ongoing investigations.
On June 13, the blockchain tokenization platform confirmed that the Holograph Operator was exploited, allowing a hacker to mint an additional 1 billion HLG tokens. Data from Etherscan revealed that the hacker sent 100 million HLG in eight transactions, with 220 million HLG transferred in a ninth and final transaction at 7:16 p.m. UTC on June 13.
After the cyber attack, the team proceeded to work with the security experts and temporarily locked down the Holograph Protocol to prevent any further exploitation.
The platform also reported that the hacker’s crypto exchange accounts on Bybit, Gate, KuCoin, Bitget, and Backpack were frozen. Furthermore, the crypto exchanges temporarily suspended all HLG deposits and withdrawals.
Despite the team’s effort to minimize the damage, the cyber attack caused HLG to face a significant drop in its prices. On June 14, HLG closed its trade at $0.00633 from its previous $0.0149 opening price on June 13, according to the data from CoinGecko.
A few days after the cyber attack, Holograph unveiled a plan to burn some of HLG tokens as a means to reduce the circulating supply and sought the help of Halborn Security, a cybersecurity company, to provide regular security audits to Holograph Protocol.
In today’s report, the platform stated that the investigation is still “fluid” and they will share more information on asset recovery and further developments related to Holograph.
Read more: Crypto hackers ran off with $176M in June, down 69% from May