Tornado Cash Hacker Uses Mixing Service To Launder Exploited Funds

The hacker behind the attack on Tornado Cash reportedly used the Ethereum mixing service to launder the funds they exploited from the platform last week. According to a report by Bloomberg, the attacker laundered almost a million dollars worth of crypto tokens while simultaneously giving up control of the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) behind Tornado Cash.

Citing data gathered by on-chain analytics firm Nansen, Bloomberg reported that the hacker stole 483,000 of Tornado Cash’s native TORN coins and swapped the majority of it for Ether. The hacker then used the Ethereum mixing service to launder 472 ETH worth about $900,000 at the time.

Blockchain security firm CertiK took to Twitter earlier today to report that a wallet associated with the hacker/hackers deposited 30 ETH ($57,000) in Tornado Cash.

The mixing service was likely used to obscure the trail of the exploited funds. According to CertiK, the funds originated from a wallet identified in phishing activity. Data from Etherscan showed that the wallet transferred over 55,000 USDT to Uniswap over the past 24 hours.

The latest developments came a week after the hacker took over the Tornado Cash DAO by floating a malicious proposal that compromised the DAO’s security and granted fake votes to the hacker. The hacker gave up control of the DAO on May 26, 2023, but managed to launder thousands of dollars worth of crypto tokens before that.

At the time of writing, Tornado Cash’s TORN token was trading at $4.32, up 1.3% over the past 24 hours. The token’s price took a significant hit following the attack on Tornado Cash, going from $7.1 to as low as $4.1. Its daily trading volume surged significantly in the aftermath of the attack, reaching a 4-week high of $25 million on May 21, 2023. With a market capitalization of $4.7 million, TORN is currently the 990th largest cryptocurrency in the world.