Cross-chain bridges are increasingly being targeted by malicious entities. However, not all hackers can escape with millions in their attempts to exploit. Some end up losing money from their own wallets.
In a Twitter thread, Alex Shevchenko, CEO of Aurora Labs, told the story of a hacker who tried to exploit Rainbow Bridge but ended up losing 5 Ethers (ETH), worth about $8,000 at the time of writing.
According to Shevchenko, the hacker provided a forged NEAR block to the Rainbow Bridge contract and made the required 5 ETH secure deposit. Believing the team would be slow to respond over the weekend, the striker timed the exploit on Saturday.
Despite the hacker’s plan, the CEO confirmed that there are automated watchdogs in place that combat malicious transactions. Within 31 seconds, the attempt was suppressed, causing the hacker to lose his security deposits.
Due to the increasing exploitation attempts, the CEO indicated that their team is considering increasing the amount required for safe deposits. However, the idea was abandoned because the team wanted to remain as decentralized as possible.
Shevchenko also left a message for the striker. The CEO urged the hacker to try to do good to society by working on bug bounties instead of stealing users’ money and trying to launder stolen assets.
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On June 7, Aurora Labs paid a bug bounty of $6 million to an ethical security hacker who pointed out a critical vulnerability to the Aurora team. The error was immediately corrected, and users’ funds were secured. If a white hat hacker decides to exploit the network, he could lose more than $200 million.
Meanwhile, the entities that carried out the Ronin Bridge hack have transferred the stolen funds into Bitcoin (BTC). Using privacy tools Blender and ChipMixer, hackers are still trying to distribute the stolen funds in hopes of overcoming the authorities.
