XRP Bridge Exploited: 198K Worth of Crypto Stolen in Sophisticated Attack

A bug in the XRPL bridge software allowed an attacker to drain XRP from the bridge's reserve wallet on August 9. The attack, which was discovered two days later, exploited a vulnerability in the bridge relayer logic involving cross-currency payments and the DefaultRipple feature.

The attackers were able to withdraw real XRP from the reserve wallet against unbacked balances that were minted on the tx chain. According to Tx's technical lead Reza Bashash, 198,715.88 XRP was stolen in total.

After the attack, the stolen XRP was converted into ETH and moved through THORChain and Tornado Cash. Tx has filed a complaint with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and is working to identify and prosecute the attacker.