Another Major Hack: $100 Million Stolen From Harmony Bridge!

Hackers have stolen $100 million from the blockchain bridge known as Horizon developed by the crypto start-up called Harmony. The Ronin network was hacked for $600 million, and Wormhole was robbed for $320 million.

Harmony is a crypto startup based in the USA and last Friday, they were notified of a malicious attack or hack on their Horizon blockchain bridge. Horizon is a cross-chain bridge or a blockchain bridge that enables the communication between different blockchain platforms. Horizon also provides features that help the users to send assets from one blockchain to another. So you can move your assets such as tokens, stablecoins, and NFTs between different blockchains such as Ethereum, Binance, and Harmony.

Another Major Hack: $100 Million Stolen From Harmony Bridge

“The Harmony team has identified a theft occurring this morning on the Horizon bridge amounting to approx. $100MM. We have begun working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds”, the team at Harmony tweeted on their official Twitter page. 

According to crypto analysts, Harmony has lost a variety of crypto assets including Ethereum, Binance coin, Tether, USD coin, and Dai. in a blog post, Harmony said, “ immediately following the attack, multiple cybersecurity partners, exchange partners, and the FBI were notified and requested to assist with an investigation in identifying the culprit and retrieving stolen assets. Further, the team has attempted communication with the hacker with an embedded message in a transaction to the culprit’s address”.

Harmony had stopped the Horizon bridge so they can prevent further leakage of funds. Many other blockchain bridges have lost their assets in a similar way Harmony has lost. The chief executive officer of security firm PeckShield, Xuxian Jiang who contacted Harmony said that the theft that occurred at Harmony seems to have happened due to a private key compromise. Blockchain bridges are more vulnerable to breaches and theft due to their anonymous teams and complicated technology. Money locked on blockchain bridges has dropped 60% in 30 days to less than $12 billion.

Last April, one of the fastest-growing DeFi services Beanstalk Farms faced an attack and hackers have stolen around $182 million. From reports, it’s clear that thieves have used the flash loan to make use of the security weakness in Beanstalk. According to crypto analysts and experts, hackers are targeting decentralized finance or DeFi platforms that have weak security. So within the first three months of this year, hackers have stolen around $1.3 billion from bridges. 

Harmony is working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the hackers and retrieve the stolen funds. They are also working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and cybersecurity firms to investigate the attack.