Coreum Bridge Hacked: Attacker Steals $250K in XRP
An attacker exploited a vulnerability in a bridge connecting the XRP Ledger and Coreum to steal approximately 200,000 XRP on August 9.
The bridge's deposit-checking system was tricked into treating a wallet-to-wallet transfer as a real deposit, allowing the attacker to drain funds from the bridge.
According to Reza Bashash, the attacker sent the bridge's wrapped token between two of their own wallets, attached a bridge-deposit memo, and because the token is issued by the bridge, the transfer showed up in its history and was read as a genuine deposit.
The stolen XRP was converted to ETH, routed through THORChain, and ultimately sent to Tornado Cash. The tx team has halted the bridge, filed a report with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, and is working on a plan for compensating users.
A later on-chain review found that 21 separate Coreum relayers each attested to the same phantom deposit, allowing the attacker to mint bridge assets with nothing backing them, then repeated the trick with escalating amounts before cashing out.