DeFi Pioneer Compound Finance Falls Victim to Domain Hijacking

On July 11, blockchain security firm PeckShield reported that the website of Compound Finance (compound[.]finance) had been compromised.

“Do not interact with the website until further notice,” it warned.

The incursion was also reported by blockchain sleuth ‘ZachXBT’ on his investigations Telegram channel. The Compound Finance website seems to “potentially be hijacked,” he said before adding, “do not visit the site for the time being.”

It “currently redirects to a newly registered phishing site,” he cautioned.

#PeckShieldAlert compound[.]finance URL has been compromised. DO *NOT* interact with the website until further notice. https://t.co/UL5GxQpave

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) July 11, 2024

Domain Hijacking

The website was unavailable when CryptoPotato tried to access it, suggesting that the team had possibly taken it down.

There was nothing about the incident on the official Compound Labs X account. It is currently unclear whether any users have lost funds due to the incident.

Domain name hijacking is when hackers gain unauthorized access to and control over a website’s domain name in order to redirect its users to a fraudulent site.

It is usually done by compromising the domain registrar account through social engineering or phishing attacks, or exploiting vulnerabilities in the domain management system. However, there was no further information on this incident at the time of writing.

Hackers often target crypto platforms in order to steal sensitive information by redirecting users to a fake site to collect login credentials or personal data or to spread malware that could steal crypto assets.

In November, decentralized cross-chain protocol Frax Finance suffered a similar domain hijacking attack.

Compound Finance is a DeFi lending platform that uses algorithmic, autonomous interest rates.

It currently has a total value locked of $2.17 billion, which is down 83% from peak levels in November 2021, according to DeFiLlama.

COMP Price Reaction

The DeFi platform’s native token, COMP, hasn’t reacted to the website hijacking and remained flat on the day, trading at $47.88 at the time of writing.

However, like most DeFi assets, it has been heavily battered from its all-time high. COMP is currently down almost 95% from its lofty peak of $910 in May 2021, according to CoinGecko.