1st august,2022 On Monday evening, Hackers exploited the cross-chain blockchain Bridge protocol Nomad, Reports suggest that the hackers stole around $190 million, Although the exact amount isn’t confirmed, Nomad Bridge exploit is the latest among several bridge exploits this year. Bloomberg report suggest that Crypto-Bridge Hacks Reach Over $1 Billion in last 1 year. Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed concern over the use of bridges for cross-chain transfer of funds.
Taking acknowledgement of the matter, Nomad updated its users for the same. The company also asked users to be aware of impersonators. Nomad tweeted:
”We are aware of the incident involving the Nomad token bridge. We are currently investigating and will provide updates when we have them”
We are aware of the incident involving the Nomad token bridge. We are currently investigating and will provide updates when we have them.
— Nomad (⤭⛓🏛) (@nomadxyz_) August 1, 2022
”We’re aware of impersonators posing as Nomad and providing fraudulent addresses to collect funds. We aren’t yet providing instructions to return bridge funds. Disregard comms from all channels other than Nomad’s official channel”
We’re aware of impersonators posing as Nomad and providing fraudulent addresses to collect funds. We aren’t yet providing instructions to return bridge funds. Disregard comms from all channels other than Nomad’s official channel: @nomadxyz_
— Nomad (⤭⛓🏛) (@nomadxyz_) August 2, 2022
As the team investigates, the MoonBeam network has been essentially paused. Thus, MoonBeam’s use for regular transactions and smart contract interactions will be disabled.
Also Read: Total Number Of Crypto Users Reach 1 Billion By 2030
Last week itself, Nomad announced securing $22 million in seed investments with giants crypto VC like Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, and others. Last April this year nomad announce first seed round led by polychain capital.
Today we’re happy to publicly reveal some of crypto's most trusted brands as part of the cohort of seed round investors in Nomad: ✨
– @coinbase Ventures
– @Cryptocom_Cap
– @0xPolygon
– @opensea
– @wintermute_t
– @GnosisDAO
– Algaé (https://t.co/d1YSNVZqjo)— Nomad (⤭⛓🏛) (@nomadxyz_) July 28, 2022
gm! We’re excited to announce that we’ve closed our $22M seed round led by @polychain, and with participation from @1kxnetwork, @etherealvc, @hack_vc, and many other amazing funds and angels!https://t.co/rKmJaRDJhC pic.twitter.com/3y7998lwGx
— Nomad (⤭⛓🏛) (@nomadxyz_) April 12, 2022
The Details of the Nomad Hack
The first illicit transaction is suspected of occurring at 9:32 UTC, Monday. It all started with a suspicious transaction removing 100 wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) worth $2.3 million from the bridge. However, the incident has seen a number of tokens exploited from the bridge. This includes the likes of Wrapped Ether (WETH), Covalent Query Token (CQT), USD Coin (USDC), Frax (FRAX), IAGON (IAG), Hummingbird Governance Token (HBOT), Card Starter (CARDS), GeroWallet (GERO), Dai (DAI), and others.
Interestingly, this exploit has been quite different from other bridge exploits occurring in 2022. During the hacking event, hundreds of addresses received tokens directly from the bridge.
Furthermore, exploiters removed all of these tokens in an unusual pattern. They removed tokens from the bridge in equivalent denominations. The attackers executed over 200 transactions each with exactly 202,440.725413 USD.
Vitalik Buterin’s take on cross-chain Bridge?
Bridge exploits have been a very common form of exploit over the last years. Millions of dollars of investors’ funds have been lost in this. In the past, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed concern over the use of bridges for cross-chain transfer of funds.
THORChain suffered multiple exploits, and Poly Network was hit by the largest DeFi hack on record worth US$600 million (although the funds were eventually returned).
Vitalik emphasized the fundamental security limits of bridges and argues that blockchains can “maintain many of their guarantees even after a 51% attack,” contradicting popular perceptions that “everything breaks” for a network in the event of a successful 51% attack.
Disclaimer
This article is written based on some official and unofficial information. This article does not encourage or discourage any cryptocurrency investment. Cryptocurrency market is very volatile and risky so check carefully before investing or consult with your personal financial advisor. This article is purely for educational and informational purposes.