Sturdy Finance DeFi Protocol Faces Exploit, Loses More Than $750,000

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Sturdy Finance has been exploited, but the team has promised that no further action will be taken against the hackers if the money is returned.

Writing on Twitter on Tuesday, Sturdy Finance founder Sam Forman said his team has told the exploiter that they are offering a $100,000 bounty if all funds are returned to the protocol.

“As we have seen with recent hacks, exploits are not as easy to escape from as they used to be,” the team warned the exploiter, while adding that the person(s) behind the exploit is welcome to contact the team “to discuss.”

We've sent the following message to the Sturdy hacker on-chain:

"To the exploiter: as we have seen with recent hacks, exploits are not as easy to escape from as they used to be. That said, we are willing to offer you $100k as a bounty, and will not pursue you further if you send…

— Sam Forman (@pgpsam) June 12, 2023

The message from the Sturdy Finance team came after blockchain security firm PeckShield on Monday publicly alerted the community about the exploit, saying it appears to be an issue “related to the price manipulation.”

Hi @SturdyFinance, you may want to take a look: https://t.co/XiJppu6Ww3

The issue seems to be related to the price manipulation

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) June 12, 2023

The exploit of Sturdy Finance led to a loss of almost $800,000 worth of crypto (442 ETH), and the protocol responded by pausing its markets and assuring community members that additional funds are safe.

We are aware of the reported exploit of the Sturdy protocol. All markets have been paused; no additional funds are at risk and no user actions are required at this time.

We will be sharing more information as soon as we have it.

— Sturdy 🧱 (@SturdyFinance) June 12, 2023

Recent events have shown mixed results when it comes to offering bounties, with some exploiters choosing to agree to deals and others keeping the drained funds for themselves.

Back in March, the people behind an exploit of the Euler Finance protocol returned $100 million worth of crypto in a surprising act after negotiating a deal with the team.

On the other hand, however, the people behind a $7.5 million exploit in May of the Arbitrum-based Jimbos Protocol has yet to return anything, despite Jimbos Protocol offering to make a deal.