Hacker-affected sidechain Ronin Network to be restarted in June

What’s new? The developers of the Ronin Network sidechain, used by the Axie Infinity blockchain game, have announced preparations to restart the network following a hacking attack that resulted in the theft of more than $625 million. The bridge will be opened on June 23, if the project’s team fails to meet that deadline, the opening will be pushed back to June 28. According to the developers’ report, they are currently focusing on making minor suggestions aimed at improving security.

We are happy to report that the Certik audit came back clean with minor suggestions.We are implementing Certik’s improvement recommendations and will begin to deploy the validator Governance Smart Contract.The Ronin Bridge is still on track for a re-opening this month.— Ronin (@Ronin_Network) June 21, 2022

What is known about the restart? Sky Mavis, the developer of Axie Infinity, has initiated an external audit of the sidechain with the assistance of cybersecurity companies Verichains and CertiK. According to a statement from Ronin representatives, the project’s team is working on improving the smart contracts and the validator system under the recommendations. The project is also in the final stage of an internal audit, which will result in a decision on a restart date.

On April 29, it was reported that the network changed the number of validators from 9 to 11, with the number to be increased to 21 in the next three months and up to 100 in the long term. The company also plans to implement stricter internal procedures and courses on cyber security for employees.

On March 29, the Ronin Network sidechain was hacked, as a result of which hackers withdrew more than $625 million in cryptocurrency. The FBI linked the attack to the Lazarus hacker group from the DPRK. The US Treasury Department added to the sanctions list a wallet containing part of the funds from the hack. In April, Binance blocked assets that the hackers had sent to the exchange’s wallets. Due to this, Ronin Network was able to recover $5,8 million.