In response to a recent security compromise involving a $10M hack, Alex Lab’s XLink, a Bitcoin bridge, has partnered with Fireblocks and Ancilia.
XLink’s wallet and intelligent contract administration will be enhanced by integrating multiparty computation (MPC) technology through the partnership with Fireblocks.
Chiente Hsu, CEO and co-founder of Alex, explained in a written Q&A with Cointelegraph:
“The partnership with Fireblocks will implement two-of-three multiparty computation wallets to hold all these user assets, with one key held by the validator network of Bitcoin Oracle (that validates the XLink bridging events), another key held by Fireblocks and the last key held by Coincover who provides the disaster recovery service.”
Additional security protocols to combat future hacks
XLink’s collaboration with Ancilia, a Web3 security firm, will offer real-time threat detection, continuous monitoring, proactive breach prevention measures, and immediate alerts.
According to Hsu, the “source of the hack” was a private key leak that enabled “admin access” to a smart contract that contained user assets. She further stated that:
“The partnership with Fireblocks will bring maximal security to our user assets, which has been planned for some time (originally scheduled for late June roll-out), but the recent incident meant we are now accelerating its deployment.”
Security update for Alex
On June 17, the team issued a security update that disclosed that the attacker who perpetrated the breach had disseminated more than 9,700 transactions.
The X post indicates that traceable transactions increased from 300 to nearly 10,000 without indicating a slowdown, as new wallet addresses were generated to distribute the stolen Stacks (STX) funds.
“[…]the number of attacker’s unique addresses has grew from around less than 100 to more than 4,700+ addresses in the span of 7 days. Smaller amounts of STX are transferred to thousands of new addresses, which then are later sent to CEXs.”
Continuous security initiatives
The new partnership with Ancilia and Fireblocks is a component of XLink’s overarching strategy to enhance the security and administration of assets on the Bitcoin bridge.
Additionally, XLink has partnered with Cobo, a digital asset custody provider, to incorporate MPC technology and “establish new security standards in the blockchain industry.”
Through its omnichain liquidity network, XLink remains committed to enabling secure BTC utility across numerous blockchains.
