{"id":9546,"date":"2025-09-02T14:38:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T14:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/venus-protocol-pauses-after-13-5m-phishing-attack-hits-major-wallet\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T14:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T14:38:12","slug":"venus-protocol-pauses-after-13-5m-phishing-attack-hits-major-wallet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/venus-protocol-pauses-after-13-5m-phishing-attack-hits-major-wallet\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Protocol pauses after $13.5m phishing attack hits major wallet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<p class=\"is-style-lead\">One Venus Protocol user apparently suffered a phishing attack, costing the user $13.5 million.<\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_9e7a8592656e2e2e4790ed478c550933\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__nav tabs\">\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Venus Protocol paused its smart contract after one user lost $13.5 million<\/li>\n<li>According to PeckShield, the user fell victim to a phishing scam<\/li>\n<li>The protocol stated that they would help the user recover their funds<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>DeFi platform Venus Protocol has paused its smart contract after a major incident. On Tuesday, Sept. 2, PeckShield reported that one Venus Protocol user lost $27 million in a phishing scam. The security firm later <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PeckShieldAlert\/status\/1962844096856568262\" target=\"_blank\">corrected<\/a> the figure to $13.5 million, after accounting for the wallet\u2019s debt position.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/PeckShieldAlert?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">#PeckShieldAlert<\/a> A user of <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VenusProtocol?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">@VenusProtocol<\/a> has been drained ~$27M in crypto after falling for a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/phishing?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">#phishing<\/a> scam.<br \/>The victim approved a malicious transaction, granting token approval to the attacker&#8217;s address (0x7fd8\u2026202a) for asset transfer. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NwkVlDxxOZ\">pic.twitter.com\/NwkVlDxxOZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PeckShieldAlert\/status\/1962811018268287096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">September 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>According to PeckShield, the user was tricked into approving a malicious transaction. This granted automatic approval for any transaction the attacker initiated, effectively giving the attacker control over all funds in the wallet.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Venus Protocol pauses smart contract<\/h2>\n<p>In response, Venus Protocol paused its smart contract as a precautionary measure, stating that it has started an <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/VenusProtocol\/status\/1962823056092733864\" target=\"_blank\">investigation<\/a> into the incident. The team later stated that the smart contract would remain paused while it helps the user recover the funds. \u201cIf the protocol resumes now, the hacker gets the user\u2019s funds,\u201d the team added.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Update: we are in direct contact with the victim of the phishing attack, and the protocol will remain paused while we try to recover his funds.<\/p>\n<p>Venus was not exploited, but we are committed to protecting our users. If the protocol resumes now, the hacker gets the user&#8217;s funds. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/441ncPEbla\">https:\/\/t.co\/441ncPEbla<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Venus Protocol (@VenusProtocol) <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VenusProtocol\/status\/1962856368832192556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">September 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The team clarified that the losses to the user did not come from a smart contract exploit. Rather, the user was the victim of a targeted phishing attack. The team also reassured users with outstanding debts that liquidations are paused.<\/p>\n<p>Pausing a DeFi smart contract is always a controversial move. Affected users appreciate the effort to punish the hackers and deny them the funds. However, some other users see it as going against the decentralized ethos of the DeFi space and as proof that the project is centralized.<\/p>\n<p>Phishing scams are becoming a major problem for DeFi. Attackers often use fake websites disguised as reputable apps to trick users into signing malicious transactions. Between May 2021 and August 2024, users lost $2.7 billion in similar attacks.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One Venus Protocol user apparently suffered a phishing attack, costing the user $13.5 million. Summary Venus Protocol paused its smart contract after one user lost $13.5 million According to PeckShield,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9548,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9546\/revisions\/9548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}