Binance is close to identifying the hacker(s) responsible for the $570 million attack on its cross-chain bridge and BSC Token Hub.
On October 7, the top cryptocurrency exchange said that a hack of the Binance Smart Chain network, which serves as a bridge for asset transfers across networks, resulted in the theft of BNB tokens valued at $570 million. Binance CEO, Zhao noted that although cross-chain bridges are particularly susceptible to hackers, no users lost any money in the assault, stating that “software code is never bug-free”. In a recent interview with CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box Europe, Zhao said the firm had received significant clues from law enforcement officials to identify the hacker(s) who stole two million BNB tokens.
Over the past year, a number of attacks have targeted cross-chain bridge vulnerabilities. According to a recent report, 13 cross-chain bridge attacks totaling $2 billion in cryptocurrency were largely committed in 2022. CZ said that as a result, the team is “following” the bad guys and working to identify the offender (s).
“We’re still actually chasing … helping [authorities] to chase the bad players, working with law enforcement around the globe. Working with law enforcement is one of the ways that we can try to make the space safe. Actually, in this particular instant, law enforcement gave us some tips on who they think it might be. So we’re actually narrowing down.”
According to the recent update by the exec, the BNB blockchain was able to prevent most of the targeted funds from being taken by the hacker by freezing 80% to 90% of them. He added that the actual loss was “much smaller” while the “vast majority of the funds remain under the control” of Binance. ”
Cross-Bridge Abuse
Users may effectively migrate crypto assets from one chain to another with the use of cross-chain bridges. These offer a well-liked method for resolving problems with multichain scalability. However, the difficulty of creating and then auditing them, together with the enormous sums of money trapped in their smart contracts, have attracted dishonest organizations.
According to Token Terminal’s most recent research, cross-chain bridges are the weakest spot in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector and are responsible for almost 50% of attacks. The cross-chain bridges have been burglarized for more than $2.5 billion over the previous two years, according to the crypto data source.
While cross-chain bridges built using the Cosmos Inter-Blockchain Communications (IBC) protocol have mainly been successful in preventing such attacks, the same cannot be said for those built using blockchains powered by the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
The bulk of cross-change vulnerabilities so far has been placed on EVM blockchains, including the Nomad bridge hack, the Wormhole token bridge hack, and the Axie Infinity Ronin bridge hack.
