Cross bridge hacks have resulted in losses of about $1.4 billion since the beginning of 2022, according to Chainalysis.

A hacker has forced crypto exchange Binance to temporarily suspend its BNB Chain blockchain after they looted $570 million worth of its BNB token by targeting a cross-chain bridge linking with it. A vulnerability allowed them to move the BNB tokens off the network. Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume. (CNBC)

“An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC,” Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s CEO, said in a tweet Thursday evening.

“The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly,” he added.

Binance clarifies

In a blog post today, Binance provided more details of the incident:

“There was an exploit affecting the native cross-chain bridge between BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) and BNB Smart Chain (BEP20 or BSC), known as “BSC Token Hub.” A total of 2 million BNB was withdrawn. The exploit was through a sophisticated forging of the low level proof into one common library.”

The tokens withdrawn fraudulently are currently worth about $570 million.

According to Bloomberg, which quoted BlockSec Chief Executive Officer Yajin Zhou, the hacker could move only $87 million out of the Binance ecosystem by the time the blockchain was suspended.

The remaining tokens are on the wallet the hacker used, but have been frozen on the Binance network, Zhou said.

Zhao said on Twitter that “in all likelihood, Binance will cover any fund that the hackers get away with.”

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