Since the beginning of 2022, attackers have carried out thirteen attacks on cross-chain bridges, stealing a total of $2 billion, Chainalysis analysts found out.
The amount of stolen cryptocurrency due to attacks on cross-chain bridges amounted to $ 2 billion, Chainalysis analysts reported in a blog.
The experts found that since the beginning of 2022, attackers have carried out thirteen attacks on cross-chain bridges. At the same time, the declared amount of theft is 69% of the total capital that hackers have stolen from the cryptocurrency market since the beginning of the year.
According to analysts, the main problem among cross-chain bridges lies in the storage system of cryptocurrency, which is transferred from one blockchain to another. Experts say that a single point of storage for cryptocurrencies becomes a prime target for attackers, whether a smart contract or a centralized depository.
Chainalysis recommended that projects pay more attention to independent audits. So far, no project has been able to develop a “gold standard” for project safety, experts say. However, as soon as someone succeeds in such progress, many projects will take this standard as the basis for their decisions.
At the same time, many projects still do not conduct introductory courses on counteracting social engineering, experts say. For example, analysts cited the Sky Mavis node hack with just a single PDF file, allowing North Korean scammers to steal more than $600 million in cryptocurrencies.
Recall that earlier, and the Nomad cross-chain bridge was hacked, resulting in more than a hundred million dollars of user funds falling into the hands of fraudsters. As users found out, scammers withdrew assets worth $150 million from Nomad.
For unknown reasons, the bridge configuration introduced the ability to receive 100 WBTC in exchange for the sent 0.01 WBTC. Users also believe that the protocol’s automated system promptly failed to provide evidence of such transactions’ legality.
