Hackers stole around $100 million worth of cryptocurrency from Harmony’s so-called Blockchain Bridge. This is in addition to more than $1 billion in crypto thefts so far this year.
Harmony stated that it notified other exchanges, and that Horizon was stopped from allowing any further transactions while the company investigates the theft. The company tweeted that one account was behind the heist on Thursday.
1/ A theft occurred this morning at the Horizon bridge. $100MM. We are working with national authorities as well as forensic experts to find the culprit and recover the stolen funds.
4/ We also notified the exchanges and stopped Horizon bridge transactions. As investigations continue, the entire team is on deck. We will keep everyone informed as we explore further and gather more information.
Harmony stated that the company was “working with national authorities, forensic experts to identify the culprits and retrieve the stolen money.” Harmony spoke about the theft of its Horizon bridge which allows for the exchange and transfer of coins across multiple blockchains. Harmony later tweeted that it was working with cybersecurity firms and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate the attack.
Harmony did not respond immediately to a request for comments.
Harmony and other blockchain bridges are designed to accept multiple tokens. As more cryptocurrencies become available, users will be able to transfer more easily through Harmony. Horizon allows cross-chain trades between the Ethereum Smart Chain and Binance Smart Chain.
According to Chainalysis, $1.3 billion was stolen from bridges during the first three months.
Multimillion-dollar losses were caused by attacks on Crypto.com, Wormhole and Ronin Network. Cybersecurity experts claim hackers target platforms that offer weak security and decentralized finance (or DeFi).
DeFi services are usually built on public blockchains. This allows users to trade crypto back and forth without having to go through a financial institution such as a bank or credit union.
Another attack was carried out by hackers who stole $182 million from Beanstalk Farms’ DeFi service. PeckShield is a Chinese blockchain security company. They used a flash loan to exploit security flaws in Beanstalk. Flash loans are unsecured loans that do not require collateral and can be used to bypass the requirement for collateral. Smart contracts use smart contracts that require repayment at the end of each transaction, usually in seconds or minutes.