NEAR Protocol Blocks $50 Million in Hacker Transfers, Later Loses $3.8 Million in Own Security Snafu

NEAR Protocol's cross-chain swap service, NEAR Intents, successfully blocked over $50 million in transfers from hackers who stole from Bitget, a cryptocurrency exchange. The theft occurred on September 24 and led hackers to attempt swaps through NEAR Intents. SHIELD, the security system designed to protect the service, blocked most of these attempts.

However, approximately $503,000 was frozen mid-swap, and about $166,000 was successfully transferred out. Two days later, on October 1, NEAR Intents faced its own internal security challenge, losing $3.8 million due to a bug in the smart contract that manages deposits and withdrawals on the cross-chain bridge.

The vulnerability allowed attackers to release tokens that were never deposited. Fortunately, the exploit's impact was contained. Illia Polosukhin, a co-founder of NEAR, stated that the loss was limited to Tether dollar tokens on the BNB Smart Chain. The SHIELD system detected the suspicious activity and paused operations across 11 networks.