Cosmos Hub Hit by $4.4 Million Attack via Manipulated Governance Proposal

Cosmos Hub validators took drastic action to mitigate damage from a sophisticated attack that drained around $4.4 million in digital assets.

The incident involved Neutron (NTRN), where an attacker spent about $20,199 to buy NTRN and staked 31.6 million tokens roughly 12 minutes before voting closed on the manipulated governance proposal. The proposal passed with 82% support and transferred control of 11 contracts to the attacker.

The attacker then moved these contracts to malicious code, allowing them to access and drain funds from connected wallets. Cosmos Hub validators coordinated the network halt to help recover some of the stolen assets.

During the restart, around 1.227 million ATOM tokens were transferred from an address linked to the attacker to a newly created one. The recovered ATOM is planned for return to its original holders.