NEAR Intents recovers entire stolen $3.8M after ultimatum to exploiter
NEAR Intents announced the full recovery of approximately $3.8 million stolen during a Thursday security breach. Following detection of a vulnerability and suspension of services, the company identified the exploiter and gave them 48 hours to return the funds under responsible disclosure terms. NEAR Intents general manager Alex Shevchenko confirmed the complete return of the stolen money and urged the community to use bug bounty programs instead of disrupting services.
Discovery of Vulnerability and NEAR Intents’ Response
NEAR Intents suspended its services after detecting a bug in the Omni infrastructure related to how deposits and withdrawals interacted with their smart contract. Preliminary investigations revealed that roughly $3.8 million in user funds was stolen during the exploit.
The company promptly investigated the incident and identified the individual responsible. According to Cointelegraph, the exploiter was given an ultimatum to return the funds within 48 hours under a responsible disclosure agreement, which helped prevent further losses.
Funds Recovery and Management Statement
NEAR Intents general manager Alex Shevchenko announced on X (formerly Twitter) that all $3.8 million stolen in the hack had been returned in full. He further stated that the investigation into the incident was being stopped and called on the community to favor bug bounty programs over disruptive actions.
Blockchain analyst ZachXBT noted that the stolen funds were initially moved to the KuCoin exchange and then bridged into Bitcoin.
NEAR Intents also pledged full compensation to affected users and encouraged the use of bug bounties to help prevent similar exploits in the future.
Why it matters
This news is significant because it highlights a successful resolution of a major security incident in a crypto service without losses to users. The full recovery of $3.8 million following an ultimatum to the exploiter demonstrates the effectiveness of responsible disclosure approaches. It underlines the importance of bug bounty programs as protective tools in the blockchain space and serves as a deterrent to hackers, showing that such exploits can be contained and mitigated with limited damage.
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