The BNB Smart Chain resumed its operations shortly after the attackers exfiltrated 2 million BNB from the cross-chain bridge.
Binance announced suspension Deposits and withdrawals from the BNB chain occurred on October 6 after hackers transferred approximately 2 million BNB (approximately $590 million) to Tether’s blacklisted wallet.
The BNB chain validator has moved to upgrade nodes and disabled native cross-chain communication. This upgrade was intended to stop hackers from doing any more harm.
In the early hours of October 7th, Binance announced that the BNB smart chain has resumed operations.
.@BNB chain I’m back online.We are now reopening @BNB chain Deposits and withdrawals at #binance.
Thank you for your patience. https://t.co/icZvlWaHGi
— Binance (@binance) October 7, 2022
$568 million lost in BSC bridge hack
according to On-chain research Paradigm Research Analyst @samczsunAttackers used a message validation vulnerability found in the Binance bridge to send 2 million BNB (approximately $568 million) to the Venus protocol.
In summary, there was a bug in the way Binance Bridge verified proofs that could allow an attacker to forge arbitrary messages. Luckily, the attackers here only forged two of her messages, but the damage could have been much worse.
— samczsun (@samczsun) October 7, 2022
According to security company block sec, BSC Bridge Hacking ranks third in the list of 11 cross-chain bridges that have lost $2 billion in cumulative since July 2021.
Cross-chain bridge security risks
The growing list of bridge hacks is reminiscent of Vitalik Buterin’s argument for cross-chain bridges in a multi-chain future.
My argument as to why the future will be *multi-chain* is not *cross-chain*. The security of bridges that span multiple “sovereignty zones” has fundamental limitations.from https://t.co/3g1GUvuA3A: pic.twitter.com/tEYz8vb59b
—vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 7, 2022
Vitalik argued that cross-chain bridges increase security risks associated with transferring assets. Chains become interdependent as assets must be transferred between different blockchain security networks.
As a result, attacks against one chain can spread contagion across other chains.
