Cross-chain bridges are increasingly being targeted by malicious entities. However, not all hackers can walk away with millions in their exploit attempts. Some end up losing money from their own wallets.
On Twitter, Alex Shevchenko, CEO of Aurora Labs, told the story of a hacker who tried to exploit Rainbow Bridge, but ended up losing 5 Ether (ETH), worth about $8,000 at the time of writing.
According to Shevchenko, the hacker presented a forged NEAR block to the Rainbow Bridge contract and provided the required 5 ETH safe. Thinking the team would be slow to react over the weekend, the striker timed his exploits on Saturday.
Despite the hacker’s plan, the CEO pointed out that there are automated watchdogs to combat the malicious transaction. Within 31 seconds, the attempt was thwarted, causing the hacker to lose his security deposit.
Due to the increasing number of exploit attempts, the CEO noted that their team is considering increasing the amount required for safes. However, the idea was dropped as the team wants to remain as committed to decentralization as possible.
Shevchenko also left a message for the attacker. The CEO urged the hacker to try to do good for the community by working on bug bounties instead of stealing users’ money and trying to launder stolen assets.
Related: Hacker gets a taste of his own medicine as community recovers stolen NFTs
On June 7, Aurora Labs paid a $6 million bug bounty to an ethical security hacker who pointed out a critical vulnerability to the Aurora team. The bug was patched immediately, and the user’s funds were secured. If a whitehat hacker had decided to exploit the network, over $200 million could have been lost.
Meanwhile, the entities that hacked Ronin Bridge transferred the stolen funds to Bitcoin (BTC). Using the privacy tools Blender and ChipMixer, hackers are still trying to spread the stolen funds in hopes of outsmarting the authorities.
