Nexus Mutual hacker demands 4.5K ETH ransom from CEO

News about the hack connected to DeFi insurer Nexus Mutual was highlighted by EtherText Twitter account, which posts news regarding text messages embedded within Ethereum transactions. On Monday, CEO of Nexus Mutual, Hugh Karp lost over $8 million worth of the project’s native NXM tokens in a targeted attack. The attacker transferred 370,000 of NXM tokens from Hugh Karp’s wallet to the hacker’s address.

However now, an anonymous user has claimed responsibility for this attack on Hugh Karp’s wallet making a statement that directly addressed the CEO: 

Hello Hugh. I will not sell wNXM any more until wNXM recovers his value or you send me 4.5k ETH.If you need any negotiation with me, send msg to my eth address.Following are your addresses. You are rich, Hugh.0x87B2a7559d85f4…”

– 0x07840..482

Image Source: Twitter

The hacker who claimed to steal the NXM tokens has now demanded a ransom. The hacker went on to state in the above message that if the CEO failed to pay a 4,500 Ether ransom, currently worth ~$2.8 million, the perpetrator would hold the tokens for now, but dump them all when the NXM price “recovers.”

Interestingly, the attacker’s ransom demand is much lesser than that of the amount stolen in the wallet hack. 

At the time of the hack, Nexus Mutual said that “the pool of funds and all systems” were “safe” and that their investigation was ongoing to “identify the attacker” even though the firm found that the attacker had completed a Know Your Customer (KYC) process “11 days ago.” However, the firm also said that the hacker “switched membership to a new address” on Friday 3 December.