Harmony’s team said that it has contacted exchanges in an effort to avoid additional rogue transactions and will shortly provide users with an update.
Horizon Bridge, an interoperability framework connecting the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), and Harmony blockchain networks, was compromised for $100 million.
The bridge’s stewards, the Harmony team, said on Thursday that they are aware of the crime and have begun working with national authorities and forensic experts to identify the perpetrator in an effort to recover the stolen monies.
The developers also said that the attack had no effect on the untrusted Bitcoin bridge since all monies and assets are housed in decentralized vaults and are now deemed “secure.”
Horizon Bridge asserts that blockchain security company Peckshield has conducted a comprehensive examination. Blockworks has tried to contact Harmony but has received no answer as of yet.
It is the latest in a series of thefts against protocols, bridges, and projects, including a loss of $20 million from Ethereum scaling solution Optimism earlier this month and a heist of $320 million from Solana bridge Wormhole in February. The Ethereum-linked sidechain Ronin Network, which is used for the blockchain game Axie Infinity, was also hacked in April, with an enormous $620 million taken.
Horizon permits cross-chain transfers of digital assets across Ethereum, Harmony, and BSC by deploying a set of smart contracts on all three chains. Users owning stablecoins, ERC-20 tokens, or Binance’s BEP-20 tokens may swap them at a 1:1 ratio for comparable assets on Harmony.
In a subsequent tweet on Thursday, the team at Harmony said that they had located the hacker’s wallet address. At the time of writing, the address has a balance of around 85,837 ether, or approximately $98 million.
“We’ve also informed exchanges and disabled the Horizon bridge to prevent additional transactions. “All hands are on deck as the investigation continues,” the team said.
The next update is anticipated within the next several hours. This is an evolving narrative that will be updated as necessary.
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