Fantom Foundation Hack

REPORTED LOSS $7.4M
Medium Suspected private-key compromise fantom ethereum

What happened

On October 17, 2023, Fantom Foundation and employee wallets were drained. CertiK traced about 4,701 ETH consolidated, worth approximately $7.35 million at its report date. Fantom said $550,000 belonged to the Foundation and the remainder was an employee's personal funds.

MetaMask reported user funds were unaffected.

Technical Root Cause

Transaction patterns support compromised wallet control, with private-key compromise assessed as likely. Initial access was not established.

Case & protocol details

Classification Other
Protocol Type Exploit/Access control
Affected asset / contract FTM
Official Website fantom.foundation/
Protocol Twitter/X @FantomFDN

How it happened

  1. Unauthorized transfers and withdrawals affected Foundation-labeled and connected employee wallets on Fantom and Ethereum.
  2. Assets were bridged and consolidated into an Ethereum address.
  3. CertiK and MetaMask assessed private-key compromise as likely. The early Chrome zero-day theory remained unconfirmed.

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