Hacker returned nearly $ 5 million stolen in ZKSYNC

The attacker who recently stole nearly $ 5 million from the Zksync Airrope Airropod, agreed to the conditions of the Bunty and returned the funds within 72 hours.

We’re Pleased to Share That’s the hacker has retirned the funs with the safe Harbor Deadline. https://t.co/Rarxl1alvv

– Zksync (∎, ∆) (@zksync) April 23, 2025

“We are pleased to report that the hacker has cooperated and returned the funds within a safe agreement. The case is considered closed, ”ZKSYNC said.

Returned assets, including ~ 44.7 million ZK and ~ 1021 ETH, are now under the control of the ZKSYNC Security Council. The further fate of the funds will be determined by voting.

The incident happened because of a compromised key to the ZK Airrope Airropod contract, which allowed the attacker to mint new tokens and transfer unused funds. After the attack, Hacker has moved assets through Ethereum and its own ZKSYNC network.

The project offered the attacker 10% of the amount as a bounty for returning 90% stolen within 72 hours. In case of refusal, they threatened to transfer the case to law enforcement.

A Message from Zksync Security Council to the Hacker:

To resolve this maticably in the spirit of safe Harbor, we are offering a 10% bounty for your cooperation if you return 90% of the funs involved in the exploit. Specifically:

1⃣ SENDING 44,687,278.5988 ZK TOKENS TO…

– ZK Nation (@thezknation) April 21, 2025

The price of the ZK token fell to $ 0.04 after the attack, but recovered to $ 0.05, losing 2.6% per day.

The ZKSYNC team assured that user funds were not injured and the protocol and contract remain safe. The full report on the incident will be published after the investigation is completed.

According to IMMUNEFI, almost $ 1.6 billion was stolen in the first two months of the year alone.

The gun