Arbitrum Halts New Stylus Activations Amid Security Concerns

The Arbitrum Security Council took emergency action to protect the network's security and integrity by pausing new Stylus activations on both Arbitrum One and Nova.

The move targets vulnerabilities tied to the Stylus framework, specifically hand-crafted WebAssembly (WASM) programs that have not been patched.

These programs could be used as denial-of-service (DoS) vectors that impair the network's liveness, but would not steal user funds.

The pause works as a preemptive block, stopping unpatched WASM programs from being deployed ahead of upcoming ArbOS updates.

The BoLD guard, a new safety mechanism, was also added to Arbitrum One's dispute system to protect against potential soundness issues.