Ronin Network blockchain bridge allegedly hacked for $9,8 million in ETH

The project team suspended the bridge while the incident was being investigated

06.08.2024 - 12:50

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3 min

What’s new? The Ronin Network blockchain bridge associated with the popular Axie Infinity game has suspended operations after a suspicious large outflow of funds favoring an MEV bot. A transaction for 3996 ETH worth over $9,8 million was recorded on August 6. Crypto community participants speculated that a white-hat hacker could be behind the incident.

Source: X.com

What else is known? Ronin Network and Axie Infinity co-founder Alexander Larsen, also known under the nickname Psycheout, noted that the bridge was suspended while the exploit was being investigated. He also assured that the $850 million worth of assets locked in the bridge are safe.

Experts from the cybersecurity company PeckShield, who noticed the suspicious transaction, also admitted that the incident was not a hack but the result of a white-hat hacker.

Source: X.com

In March 2022, the Ronin bridge has already faced a hack, which remains the largest in the crypto space to date. An exploit of validator keys resulted in the loss of ETH and USDC stablecoins totaling $625 million.

Back then the attackers, who turned out to be North Korean hackers from the Lazarus group, managed to mislead an employee of the firm. Pretending to be potential employers, they sent the employee a fake offer in the form of a document with malicious code.

Losses from crypto project hacks rose by 51% in a month

The incidents resulted in a loss of $266 million

In July, the Solana blockchain team announced a contest for white-hat hackers with rewards of up to $1 million for finding vulnerabilities in the upcoming Firedancer upgrade.

In April, blockchain audit firm Asymmetric Research discovered a critical vulnerability in the Cosmos blockchain’s Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol that could have resulted in a $126 million loss.

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