NEAR Intents Says $3.8 Million Exploit Funds Returned

NEAR Intents General Manager Alex Shevchenko said October 3 that about $3.8 million taken in an October 1 exploit had been returned in full, following his 48-hour demand that the suspected attacker send the funds back. The reports attribute the recovery announcement to Shevchenko; they do not provide independent confirmation of the full return or establish when affected users were reimbursed. The exploit involved a vulnerability in the interaction between NEAR Intents’ Omni deposit-and-withdrawal system and its smart contract. NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin said the incident was limited to USDT on BNB Chain. He said SHIELD, the platform’s security monitoring system, detected unusual activity and triggered a pause. NEAR Intents said it patched the contract vulnerability within about an hour. Deposits and withdrawals were then kept paused on affected networks while further fixes and checks were carried out. Reports listed 11 networks affected, including BNB Chain, Polygon, TON and Avalanche, though their lists of networks differ. The pause was temporary, and most services were reported restored by October 2.