DeFi lender Tender.fi suffers exploit, white hat hacker suspected

An alleged moral hacker has drained $1.59 million from the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Tender.fi, main the service to halt borrowing whereas it makes an attempt to recoup its belongings.
Web3-focused sensible contract auditor CertiK, and blockchain analyst Lookonchain, flagged an exploit that noticed funds drained from the DeFi lending protocol on March 7. Tender.fi confirmed the incident on Twitter, citing “an uncommon quantity of borrows” by way of the protocol:
We’re investigating an uncommon quantity of borrows that got here by way of the protocol- within the meantime, we’ve got paused all borrowing. Thanks on your endurance.
— Tender.fi (@tender_fi) March 7, 2023
The newest replace from the platform claims {that a} white hat hacker has made contact, and discussions are underway to recoup belongings taken through the exploit. White hat hackers are also referred to as moral hackers and usually search for and reap the benefits of safety flaws in numerous protocols earlier than returning funds.
The whitehat has made contact over debank and we’re at present in discussions on easy methods to treatment this case. We’ll replace you with extra data when we’ve got it.
— Tender.fi (@tender_fi) March 7, 2023
Cointelegraph reached out to CertiK to unpack the state of affairs, which highlighted that the exploiter left an on-chain message which has been verified on the Arbitrum Blockchain Explorer:

Lookonchain provided additional particulars of the exploit, citing blockchain information displaying that the white hat hacker borrowed $1.59 million value of belongings from the protocol by depositing 1 GMX token, valued at $71 on the time of writing.
Associated: $700,000 drained from BNB Chain-based DeFi protocol LaunchZone
Cointelegraph has reached out to Tender.fi to determine additional particulars of the exploit and whether or not funds shall be returned by the white hat hacker. DeFi protocols have been the goal of hackers in early 2023, with seven completely different platforms shedding over $21 million in February alone. Hackers additionally took benefit of an oracle exploit in Jan. 2023, seeing over $120 million stolen from BonqDAO.