Ethereum Bridges Lose Millions Amid Exploits and Security Failures

Two Ethereum bridges, AFX and Verus, suffered significant losses within hours of each other. On July 22, an exploit occurred on the AFX bridge, resulting in a loss of $24.15 million USDC. This was due to coordinated social engineering and infrastructure compromise, with access beginning in a development environment before escalating into internal build infrastructure and validator systems.

AFX suspended its USDC custody bridge and stated that the incident was isolated from its trading infrastructure, mainnet, and the Arbitrum network. The affected component was a third-party bridge, not Arbitrum's native bridge.

In a separate incident, the Verus-Ethereum bridge paid out $7.54 million in unbacked assets after approving eight withdrawals without proof of matching reserves. This occurred hours after the AFX exploit.

B² Network also experienced an issue, with unauthorized access to its staking contract's upgrade authority. The network halted normal staking during security reviews and promised full compensation to affected users. Users were instructed to request unstaking through B²'s official Discord, with ownership-verified requests to be processed within one business day.