Qubic has suspended its network after an attacker exploited weakly generated wallet seeds to drain 1,404 wallets of approximately 2.94 trillion QU in a security incident that spanned October 17 and 18. According to the project, the root cause was insufficient randomness in seed generation — an issue it said did not lie with the Qubic protocol itself. That distinction frames the response: the fix arrives as a software release for seed generation, while the fate of the stolen funds runs through the protective halt, exchange-side freezes, and the network's own governance process.

The project disclosed the incident in a post on X on October 18, the day after the attack began:

Security incident update.

Between 23:42 UTC on 17 October and 01:26 UTC on 18 October, an attacker drained 1,404 Qubic wallets, totalling around 2.94 trillion QU.

Here is what happened, what has been done, and what comes next.

— Qubic (@Qubic) October 18, 2026

Network Halted at Tick 85,371,949

The attack unfolded between 23:42 UTC on October 17 and 01:26 UTC on October 18, according to Qubic's post, with the funds taken from 1,404 separate wallets during the window. Transaction processing was halted by the network's Computors, which established a protective halt at tick 85,371,949 — the point at which the incident was said to have occurred. That action has hindered the attacker's ability to freely move the stolen assets.

Qubic said that 87.1% of the drained QU never left the network and remains stuck on-chain. The remaining 12.9% was sent to the crypto exchange MEXC, which froze the receiving wallet approximately one hour after receiving a call, according to the project. Other exchanges were also notified and have suspended QUBIC deposits and withdrawals. That split makes exchange cooperation central to the recovery effort — with most of the QU immobile on-chain and the MEXC-bound tranche frozen, the funds' fate hinges on those freezes remaining in place while the quorum weighs its decision.

Weak Seed Randomness Identified as the Root Cause

Qubic traced the exploit to a lack of randomness in wallet seeds. The affected versions are: all seeds generated before October 18, 2026; seeds created in Safari on Mac before the same date; and wallets generated through the Qubic iOS app up to July 2025.

Version 4.26.4 Fixes the Seed Generation Issue

The problem has been resolved in version 4.26.4, meaning no weak seeds will be formed with that release, the project said — ensuring newly created wallets will not carry the same vulnerability. Qubic's Core team has now started identifying all impacted wallets and is ready to take the necessary steps to recover them. Under the governance rules of Qubic's network, the final decision on the frozen funds rests with the quorum of Computors. The team is also holding a community poll on Discord to better understand Computor sentiment before putting forward a recovery proposal.

Recovery Process Moves to the Computor Quorum

Qubic has not yet announced when normal transaction processing will resume, leaving the protective halt in place for now. In the meantime, affected users have been urged to report the incident to police or cybercrime authorities, providing their wallet ID, the amount lost, and links to the relevant transactions in the Qubic explorer. The project noted that such formal reports could be helpful in involving exchanges to maintain freezes on the associated funds.

Qubic also cautioned users against recovery scams, stressing that its team would never reach out to users first to ask for wallet seeds or to offer paid recovery services. Once the network reaches a decision on the recovery of the frozen QU, a full technical report is expected. Until then, the concrete signposts are the Discord poll's read on Computor sentiment, the quorum's ruling on the frozen funds, the resumption of transaction processing, and the technical report that follows the decision.

This article is based on a report originally published by Crypto Ninjas.