Nomad Bridge Suffers ~$200M Exploit
02 August 2022 - 4:58AM
NEWSBTC
Bridge exploits continue to prove to be a top concern across DeFi
and crypto at large, as bridges time and time again have proven to
be a major point of vulnerability. Enter once again another prime
example with the latest 9-figure exploit, this time on the
multi-chain Nomad Bridge. In the early hours following the exploit,
we’re looking at an exploit in the range of $160-190M – let’s take
a look at this and more from what we know thus far. Nomad’s
Collapse According to Defi Llama, the bridge closed off July with a
TVL of right around $190M, and as August went underway, many users
on crypto Twitter began to watch the bridge get exploited and
essentially drained to 0. The bulk of that was in USDC, WETH, and
WBTC. However, roughly a half dozen different tokens were drained,
ranging anywhere from ten’s of thousands to nearly $100M worth. It
was first noted by Twitter user @spreekaway: Nomad bridge getting
rugged??? Looks very very sus pic.twitter.com/nvtMIjf0rD — Spreek
(@spreekaway) August 1, 2022 Seed investors in Nomad include the
likes of Polygon, Coinbase Ventures, OpenSea and others, and the
bridge took on a $22M round of fundraising just 4 months ago. Ether
(ETH) can be wrapped to be used to transfer across networks,
through bridges, at a lower cost than ETH. | Source: ETH-USD on
TradingView.com Related Reading | TA: Near Protocol Struggles To
Break Out Despite Relief Bounce Another Bridge Bites The Dust
However the Nomad team looks to recover, it will be a long road to
travel. Bridges continue to be a focal point of vulnerability in
crypto, as 9-figure exploits continue to wreak havoc. Earlier this
year, Wormhole suffered a loss over $300M in one of the biggest
losses in DeFi history. Cross-chain activity should be a major
point of emphasis for crypto security as many have touted it as
“the future of crypto” – but also offers areas of vulnerabilities.
Unlike many of the vulnerabilities seen in crypto, however, this
one was seemingly just a contract exploit utilized by a variety of
addresses (some of which have said they plan to return the funds).
In this case, a user manipulated code noted in the bridge’s audit,
taking advantage of a vulnerable function to have every message on
the bridge valid. Other users saw this taking place, and sought to
see if they could do so themselves. Perhaps enough funds will be
returned for the bridge to continue forging ahead after the dust
settles. At time of publishing, the bridge’s TVL sits just shy of
$5,000 – a tiny amount of the near $200M locked pre-exploit, but
still a small bounce back from the sub-$1,000 worth that was seen
immediately following the exploit. Related Reading | Ethereum
Investors Clamor To Take Profits As Profitability Explodes Featured
image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com The writer of this
content is not associated or affiliated with any of the parties
mentioned in this article. This is not financial advice.
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