$NEAR Intents Resumes Service After $3.8M Exploit, Promises Full Compensation

Near Inc.'s $NEAR Intents service has resumed operations after a recent exploit resulted in losses of approximately $3.8 million. The incident involved an attacker exploiting a bug in the Omni deposit/withdrawal infrastructure and the $NEAR Intents smart contract, targeting $USDT on BSC.

According to co-founder Illia Polosukhin, SHIELD, the AI security layer on Intents, detected outlier behavior and temporarily paused the service. The team then identified the vulnerability and fixed it within an hour of detection.

Polosukhin assured users that all affected parties will be compensated in full. He also emphasized that the core $NEAR Protocol, its native token, and other applications running on $NEAR were unaffected by the incident.

The incident is considered a major exploit for $NEAR Intents, with Polosukhin stating that it serves as a reminder to hold security standards higher at their scale. He also highlighted the importance of formal verification systems for preventing vulnerabilities and plans to implement this tool in the near future.