A significant security flaw that resulted in the successful theft of cryptocurrency valued at at least $100 million has impacted the Horizon Bridge connecting the Harmony layer-1 blockchain.
The most recent DeFi Bridge exploit costs Horizon $100 million in losses.
The Harmony team revealed the information early on Friday, stating that it had “discovered a theft occuring this morning on the Horizon bridge amounting to approx. $100MM,” and that the bridge had been shut down to stop any additional transactions.
1/ The Harmony team has identified a theft occurring this morning on the Horizon bridge amounting to approx. $100MM. We have begun working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds.
— Harmony 💙 (@harmonyprotocol) June 23, 2022
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It went on to say that the hacker’s address had been discovered and that it was coordinating closely with the appropriate law enforcement and forensic specialists to recover the stolen property. In a subsequent tweet, Harmony stated that it is continuing its inquiries into the tragic incident while “working around the clock” with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and various cyber security companies.
Frax (FRAX), Wrapped Ether (wETH), Wrapped BTC (WBTC), Aave (AAVE), Frax Share (FXS), Binance USD (BUSD), Dai (DAI), AAG (AAG), USD Coin (USDC), Sushi (SUSHI), and Tether (USDT) are among the tokens allegedly taken off the bridge by the attacker and exchanged for Ethereum. However, as of the time of publication, the bad actor(s) had not transferred the illicit cash to exchanges or mixing services like Tornado Cash.
According to Harmony, the attack had no effect on its trustless bitcoin bridge. The team said that “its monies and valuables housed in decentralized vaults are safe at this time.”
The proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm is used by Harmony, a layer-one blockchain. Between Harmony blockchains and the Ethereum network, bitcoin, and BNB Chain, users can send and receive crypto tokens, stablecoins, and NFTs through the Horizon Bridge.
In the meantime, according to statistics from CoinMarketCap, Harmony’s native coin ONE has dropped 10.73 percent over the past 24 hours to trade at $0.02419. This occurred despite a considerable recovery in the overall cryptocurrency market, with bitcoin regaining the $21,000 milestone.
For a long time now, the cryptosphere has been deeply divided on the vulnerability of token bridges. Cross-chain bridges have drawbacks, and co-founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin cautioned about them in January of this year, noting the security dangers associated with such protocols.
Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge, Wormhole Bridge, and Meter Passport token bridge all experienced exploits after he issued his warning, allowing hackers to make off with a combined total of about $1 billion in stolen cryptocurrency.
