Tx Team Halted Bridge Ops After 200,000 XRP Theft Exposes Critical Flaw

The Sologenic and Coreum projects' cross-chain bridge was hacked on August 9, resulting in the theft of 200,000 XRP. The attack lasted only 97 minutes but had a significant impact on the ecosystem.

According to the official report by tx, the attacker exploited a critical flaw in the bridge's deposit verification logic, rather than compromising any cryptographic keys. This means that the hacker was able to simulate deposits and attach text memos with destination details for the Coreum network, which were then read by validators without checking whether the funds had actually been sent to the bridge's wallet.

The team has halted bridge operations while dealing with the consequences of the incident and has fixed the verification bug. The company emphasized that the bridge's smart contracts had undergone several rounds of internal and independent audits, none of which identified the flaw.

tx developers are now working to contain the damage by isolating the risk and restoring the backing of bridged XRP within the tx network. They have also filed an official complaint with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and are developing a compensation mechanism for affected users.