Software engineer sentenced to three years in prison for Nirvana hack

Computer information technologist Shakeeb Ahmed was sentenced to 3 years successful situation followed by 3 years of supervised merchandise successful Southern New York District (SDNY) Court. Ahmed was recovered blameworthy of flash indebtedness attacks connected the decentralized Crypto Exchange and Nirvana exchanges successful 2022.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said successful a connection that Ahmed’s condemnation was the archetypal for hacking a astute contract. Ahmed was besides ordered to forfeit $12.3 cardinal arsenic good arsenic “a important quantity of cryptocurrency” and to wage the exchanges $5 cardinal successful restitution.

Ahmed had offered to instrumentality each the funds stolen from Crypto Exchange but for $1.5 cardinal if the speech did not interaction instrumentality enforcement. Nirvana offered him $600,000 for the instrumentality of funds, but Ahmed demanded $1.4 million, retired of the $3.6 cardinal helium hacked, and nary statement was reached.

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Nirvana’s NIRV stablecoin depegged from the U.S. dollar, and its autochthonal ANA coin fell by 85% connected the quality of the hack and closed soon afterward. According to the SDNY statement, Ahmed laundered the hacked funds:

“Using token-swap transactions; ‘bridging’ fraud proceeds from the Solana blockchain implicit to the Ethereum blockchain; exchanging fraud proceeds into Monero […]; utilizing overseas cryptocurrency exchanges; and utilizing cryptocurrency mixers, specified arsenic Samourai Whirlpool.”

It has besides been observed that a 3rd exchange, Crema, was taxable to an attack successful July 2022 utilizing the aforesaid methods, but the national charges did not nexus him to that hack.

Ahmed was employed arsenic “a elder information technologist for an planetary exertion company” astatine the clip helium carried retired the attacks, according to the statement. According to Bloomberg, Ahmed was the method pb of Amazon’s bug bounty program.

According to Inner City Press, Ahmed, who was released connected bail, present works for a intelligence wellness attraction startup. That work quoted him arsenic saying, “I witnessed hacks, I recovered a mode to exploit an exchange's astute contracts. I went into therapy” astatine his trial.

Ahmed was arrested successful New York and charged successful July with ligament fraud and wealth laundering successful transportation with the hacks. He went connected to plead blameworthy to a azygous complaint of machine fraud successful December.

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