Cosmos Hub Halts Network to Stop AI-Driven Governance Attack

The Cosmos Hub has restarted after nearly 25 hours of being halted by validators. The network was stopped to prevent further harm from an attacker who had gained control of Astroport and Drop contracts through a governance vote on Neutron.

A governance proposal titled 'AIATO: AI Agent Takeover. Phase 1: Agent Admin Registration' passed with about 82% of votes in favor, allowing the attacker to take control of the contracts. The attacker then swapped the code of 10 out of 11 contracts and emptied them in under half an hour, taking tokens valued at around $9.4 million.

In the first block committed after the restart, 1,227,121 ATOM worth about $2.1 million moved out of the wallet holding proceeds from the governance attack on Neutron. The transfer was made to a newly created address without a transaction signed by the wallet's owner.