Bittensor: PyPi package vulnerability prompts hacker attack, is working with trading platform to recover funds
On July 4th, the decentralized AI network Bittensor officially announced that its community participants suffered a serious security attack on July 2nd. The Bittensor Foundation has taken urgent action to block further outflows of funds and launched an in-depth investigation into the attack.
It is reported that the attack originated from a malicious program masquerading as a legitimate Bittensor package in the 6.12.2 version of the PyPi package manager. When a user downloads the package and decrypts their cold wallet key, the decrypted bytecode is sent to the attacker's remote server, resulting in the theft of funds.
Affected are mainly users who downloaded the Bittensor PyPi package between May 22 and 29 and made transfers, pledges, delegates, etc. The Bittensor Foundation has removed the malicious software package from PyPi and conducted a comprehensive review of the code. No other vulnerabilities have been found yet.
To stem the losses, the Bittensor Foundation has put validators behind a firewall and activated a secure mode on Subtensor. The Bittensor blockchain has suspended all transactions until the bug is fixed. The Foundation is working with trading platforms to try to recover the stolen funds.
The Bittensor Foundation says it will learn lessons to improve the package verification process, increase the frequency of external audits, and improve security standards and monitoring. An AMA will be held in the near future to answer community questions and concerns. The foundation is urging users to transfer funds to new wallets as soon as possible and upgrade to the latest version of the Bittensor package.