Hackers Exploit Harmony’s Horizon Blockchain Bridge to Steal $100 Million

****The main bridge of layer-1 blockchain between Binance Chain, Ethereum, and Bitcoin was exploited, but the BTC bridge isn’t impacted.****

Harmony’s Horizon Bridge is the latest to be hacked. According to the US crypto platform Harmony, a malicious attack on the proprietary Horizon Blockchain bridge occurred on Thursday. The attacker exploited a vulnerability and managed to steal $100 million in altcoins from Horizon Bridge.

For your information, Blockchain bridges or cross-chain bridges facilitate communication between blockchains and let users send assets like NFTs, stablecoins, or tokens between Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, and Harmony Blockchains.

Details of the Hack

The attack started at around 7:08 am EST and lasted until 7:26 am EST. During this time, eleven transactions were made from Horizon for different tokens. Now the attacker is trying to swap them for ETH by sending tokens to another wallet on Uniswap DEX (decentralized exchange) and sending ETH back to their original wallet.

In a tweet, Harmony noted that the attacker stole $100 million from its Blockchain bridge. As per Elliptic, a blockchain analysis company, numerous crypto assets were taken, including Binance Coin, Ethereum, Dai, and USD Coin. However, Harmony’s bridge for BTC (bitcoin) wasn’t impacted.

Company’s Response

According to the company’s blog post, immediately after noticing the attack, the company engaged multiple cybersecurity partners, exchange partners, forensic experts, and the FBI to identify the attacker and retrieve stolen assets.

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.

More 🧵

— Harmony 💙 (@harmonyprotocol) June 23, 2022

Furthermore, the team has communicated with the attacker and sent them an embedded message to their address in a transaction. Harmony also halted new transactions on Horizon bridge. Harmony didn’t reveal how the funds got stolen or the vulnerability.

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