Security News > 2023 > December > Ex-Amazon engineer pleads guilty to hacking crypto exchanges
Former Amazon security engineer Shakeeb Ahmed pleaded guilty this week to hacking and stealing over $12.3 million from two cryptocurrency exchanges in July 2022.
The two affected companies are Nirvana Finance, a decentralized crypto exchange, and an unnamed exchange on the Solana blockchain platform that Ahmed hacked using his blockchain audit and smart contract reverse engineering skills.
Despite being offered a $300,000 bounty to return the stolen crypto assets, Ahmed kept everything he stole after demanding $1.4 million and not reaching an agreement, forcing the exchange to shut down.
Seeking to conceal his actions and obscure the digital trail of the stolen funds, Ahmed used several cryptocurrency mixers, the Solana and Ethereum blockchains, and foreign exchanges to convert the millions he stole into Monero, a cryptocurrency known for its enhanced privacy and anonymity.
"Five months ago, my Office announced the first ever arrest involving an attack on a smart contract. Today, senior security engineer Shakeeb Ahmed pled guilty and agreed to return all of the stolen crypto to his victims. That arrest is now the first ever conviction for such a hack," said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams on Thursday.
"Ahmed's plea has also resulted in him further admitting that he carried out a previously unsolved second multi-million-dollar hack, this time of decentralized finance protocol Nirvana Finance. In total, Ahmed used his technical knowhow to steal over $12 million and tried to cover his tracks by swapping stolen crypto for Monero, using cryptocurrency mixers, hopping across blockchains, and utilizing overseas crypto exchanges."