Drift Protocol drained of $270M+ after signers pre-signed durable-nonce admin transactions
Drift Protocol (Security Council multisig)
On Apr 1, 2026, an attacker took admin control of the Solana perps exchange Drift and drained its vaults of at least $270 million; SlowMist lists $285 million. Weeks earlier, Security Council signers had been led into 'unauthorized or misrepresented' approvals. Because those transactions used durable nonces, they stayed valid until the attacker chose to submit them. The funds were bridged to Ethereum, including more than $230 million in USDC via Circle's CCTP. No code bug was needed. The lesson for teams is that any durable-nonce signing request is high risk.
Why this severity: $285M reported stolen.
AI involvement
AI did the attacking. TRM Labs investigator Nick Carlsen, a former FBI analyst, assessed it highly likely that the attackers used AI to pick targets and design the exploit, as The Next Web reported citing Bloomberg; this is an expert assessment, not confirmed.
Projects: assume contracts and front-ends are scanned around the clock, so audit, cap admin powers and monitor. Users: keep funds out of new or unaudited contracts.
- Started
- Apr 1, 2026
- Chains
- Solana
- Method
- Durable nonce tricks
- Reported stolen
- $285M
At risk
- Drift Protocol (Security Council multisig)
- Solana wallets
What to do now
- Follow recovery updates only through Drift's official channels, reached from your own bookmarks.
- Ignore 'Drift refund' or 'claim' sites and DMs; they are a common follow-up scam.
- You do not need to revoke anything in your own wallet for this incident.
Stay safe
Am I affected?
You are affected if you had deposits on Drift on Apr 1, 2026. The vaults themselves were drained, so this was not about your own wallet's keys.
What to do now
- Follow recovery updates only through Drift's official channels, reached from your own bookmarks.
- Ignore 'Drift refund' or 'claim' sites and DMs; they are a common follow-up scam.
- You do not need to revoke anything in your own wallet for this incident.
How to avoid this (for teams and multisig signers)
- Treat any transaction that uses a durable nonce (it includes an 'advance nonce' instruction) as high risk, and refuse to sign one unless the whole council expects it.
- Decode and verify every admin transaction on the hardware wallet screen; never sign from a summary someone else gives you.
- Keep timelocks and monitoring on admin and upgrade-authority changes, and watch for new nonce accounts linked to signers.
Timeline 8
Another 18,800 ETH (about $46M) went to Tornado Cash, a two-day total of 44,510 ETH (about $109M); about 56,569 ETH stayed in exploiter-labelled wallets per Arkham.
SourceThe Drift exploiter sent about $61M in ETH to Tornado Cash.
SourceSecurityWeek reported Elliptic's $286M estimate and a likely North Korean link; about $225M had been swapped to Ethereum.
SourceAttackers executed pre-signed durable-nonce transactions to take Drift's admin key, created a fake CVT collateral market, raised the circuit breaker and drained six assets in about 10 seconds.
SourceAbout a minute after a legitimate insurance-fund test withdrawal, the attacker submitted two pre-signed transactions, took admin control and drained the vaults.
SourceA new durable nonce account tied to a member of the updated multisig appeared.
SourceDrift executed a planned Security Council migration to replace a member.
SourceFour durable nonce accounts were created, two tied to Security Council members and two controlled by the attacker.
Source
Alerts & on-chain evidence 1
News & write-ups ›4
- How a Solana feature designed for convenience let attackers drain more than $270 million from DriftCoinDesk · Apr 2, 2026
- North Korean Hackers Drain $285 Million From Drift in 10 SecondsSecurityWeek · Apr 3, 2026
- Drift exploiter sends $109M in Ether to Tornado Cash in 2 daysCointelegraph · Oct 21, 2026
- AI gave North Korean hackers a $600 million month. DeFi is still working out how to respond.The Next Web · May 15, 2026
How this method works
Normal Solana transactions expire in about a minute. A durable-nonce transaction doesn't, so a drainer can hold your signature and use it later. Read about durable nonce tricks →
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