Hackers steal $31.6M with 2 crypto bridge attacks within 7 hours

Hackers stole a total of more than $31.6 million in two separate cryptocurrency bridge attacks occurring within a seven-hour span. The first attack targeted a bridge operated by AFX, a decentralized perpetual exchange on the Arbitrum network, resulting in a loss of approximately $24.15 million. This exploit was detected by Blockaid at around 9:30 pm UTC. Stephen Goldfeder, co-founder of Offchain Labs, confirmed that a third-party protocol’s bridge was hacked but emphasized that Arbitrum’s native bridge was not compromised. Security expert SunSec suggested the breach was likely due to compromised private keys rather than vulnerabilities in smart contract code.

The second attack was on the Verus Ethereum Bridge and occurred just hours later, stealing about $7.5 million in various crypto assets including Ether, tBTC, USDC, USDt, EURC, MKR, and scrvUSD. Blockaid noted this exploit resembled a previous May incident on the same Verus bridge, which resulted in a $11.58 million loss, and involved the attacker using the bridge import path to trigger unbacked Ethereum-side payouts. The attacker’s wallet was different in this case, but the attack method was reported as similar.

These incidents underscore the persistent security risks associated with crosschain bridges, which are often targeted due to the large pools of assets they hold and their function of transferring funds between blockchains. Onchain investigator TheCrypticWolf commented that bridges have been recurrent weak points in crypto security, implying a need for substantial upgrades to their protection mechanisms. Cointelegraph highlights these events within its commitment to providing accurate and timely crypto news.